Stop Motion Animation

What is Stop Motion?

Stop motion is an animation technique which allows static objects to appear as if they're moving, by taking individual pictures which are eventually run together like the frames of a film. Between pictures, slight adjustments are made to the objects, creating the illusion of movement. Examples of stop motion used in education include Slowmation and blackboard animations. Stop motion is a good choice if you want to create a small number of videos conveying complicated physical processes.

Stop motion can be extremely time-consuming: a video shot on a video camera usually runs at 24 fps (frames per second). Each photo taken for a stop motion project is one frame. If each photo takes 30 seconds, creating a five-minute 24 fps video will take 60 hours. While 24 fps is a much higher frame rate than you have to use—2 fps will work well in most applications—stop motion projects take a long time to create.

On the positive side, stop motion animation doesn't require a video camera, can be done with almost anything, and allows for a fine degree of control over the subjects of the video. It's also naturally engaging: people love watching inanimate objects come to life!

How Does It Support Learning?

Stop motion is just one way to create video which supports learning. Stop motion animation may support learning by:

Illustrating processes that can't be seem by the naked eye. Dr. Steven Barnes epigenetics series and Dr. Rosie Redfied's cell animation are examples.

Highlighting action and impact when telling a story. The example below illustrates this.

Have a look at this video by Health Animated, a group of upper-year UBC pharmacy students, for an example of what stop-motion animation can be used for.

Resources to get you started

UBC's Design Principles for Multimedia: an overview of research and practice based principles for effective multimedia design, within a practical framework.
What Makes an Instructional Video Compelling?: an interesting piece looking at factors like relationship to course content and conversational language, as contributors to compelling viewing of instructional media among students.

Instructional design support

Working in Connect? Visit LTHub.

Working in WordPress? Have a look at UBC's CMS page, and register for one of the CTLT's WordPress dropin clinics.

Looking for learning/instructional design resources? Contact your CTLT learning/instructional designer, your Flexible Learning liaison, or your Instructional Support Unit for consultation.

Benefits of video for learning

Instructor created:

"Students can develop a deep understanding of a science concept by bringing together different ways of making meaning: researching content, storyboarding, making models, using narration, labelling key aspects, etc."

Gary Hoban, Associate Professor, University of Wollongong, Australia, who developed Slowmation

Student created:

"For a novice learner, I have found that concise expository summaries do very little to improve learning - a key for me is to start with misconceptions and show how misconceptions can morph into a complete scientific truth."

Derek Muller of Veritasium, in an interview with Nottingham Science on YouTube.

Examples

Stop motion animation using found objects

Animation is a great way to explain a complex process—learners can see it happening right in front of them. However, most forms of animation require a lot of time and training. To create even relatively simple animations, like this one, used in ZOOL 250 at the University of Alberta, require huge investments in time and effort: you have to learn animation software, and then create the animation, to say nothing of the cost of the software. While stop motion is still time-intensive, it doesn't require anything more than the ability to take pictures and edit video. This video, created by Dr. Rosie Redfield, quickly and effectively explains how influenza cells take up DNA, using candy and construction paper.

Chalkboard animation

Dr. Steven Barnes, a psychology professor at UBC, created a series of chalkboard animations for several of the courses he teaches. Chalkboard animation was selected for what Dr. Barnes calls 'zoomability': he can easily transition from looking at the human body to individual neurons, allowing him to contextualize what's going on at a microscopic level with what's happening to the body as a whole.

While he does have an artistic background, the videos are created by tracing images projected onto the chalkboard, turning the projector off, taking a picture, ad infinitum. Creative commons images could be used to achieve the same effect, even if you have trouble drawing stick figures.

Stop motion animation using paper cutouts

Making the perfect objects for your stop motion project can be as easy as breaking out the pencil crayons and scissors. This video from the Digital Tattoo project explains data mining using a whiteboard and paper cutouts. If you don't feel like drawing, printed images would work, as well. For more a complete explanation of their process, click here.

What Do I Need?

The stop motion animation process can be broken into two parts: recording, and editing.

Hardware

Stop motion animation is created by stringing together a series of static images, creating the illusion of movement. To create a stop motion animation project, you'll need...

A digital camera
A set of objects
Lights
A microphone to record voice-overs (optional)

Camera Almost any camera will work for creating stop-motion animation. When you're choosing a camera, look for the ability to hold a large number of pictures, take pictures relatively quickly, control exposure, and stay firmly in place. These are important qualities for several reasons. The average stop motion project will have hundreds of videos: being able to hold them all, and take them quickly, will help make the process run smoothly. Having some way to hold your camera firmly in place will prevent the camera from moving: if you drop or bump your camera, you'll never get the same angle back, and there will be a jump in your video. Exposure control is important to keep lighting consistent in your video. If your camera continuously and automatically adjusts your exposure, your video will flicker, as how well-lit your photo is will change subtly from picture-to-picture. Again, the majority of modern digital camera will fit the bill, including phones and webcams, but double-check that you're set up to use your equipment. An expensive camera won't do you any good if you don't have a tripod, or know how to use it.	Set of objects You can use almost anything for the subject/medium of your video. You're only limited by your imagination, and how you think you can best communicate your ideas. Claymation is a popular professional technique: clay figures, moved small amounts between pictures, can create very effective and realistic videos, although it's a hugely labour-intensive technique: the standard is 30 pictures per second of video. Stop motion animation with Lego, also known as Brickfilm, lends itself to stop motion relatively easily: figures hold their position, have a simple but full range of movement, and can be easily posed. Lego is relatively ubiquitous, easy to make complex shapes with, and entertaining—lots of people have memories of playing with it at some point. A simpler technique is sticking to two dimensions. At the top of the page, Rosie Redfield used candy on a construction-paper background to illustrate the process of DNA uptake by bacteria, by drawing larger, static, shapes, and moving the smaller, mobile parts of the cell (represented by different kinds of candy) around between pictures. Blackboard animation, another kind of 2D stop motion, consists of images drawn, photographed, modified, and photographed again, on a blackboard or whiteboard. By making small changes to the images between pictures, the illusion of movement is created. Even paper cutouts moving on a background can be effective, and it's easy to customize your objects when you can print out or draw whatever characters you want.
Lights When you're filming stop motion animation, it's important that you're in complete control over your lighting. If you allow any natural light in your presentation, small changes in shadows will become very obvious as the photos are time-lapsed together. A three-point lighting setup is ideal, but any lights will work as long as your pictures are well-exposed, and the level of illumination remains constant over time. You can use any sources of light you have on hand. Desk lamps with flexible or movable arms work very well: you can position them so your shot is illuminated exactly as you need it, and they're sturdy enough that they shouldn't move over the course of your shoot if you're careful.	Microphones Here are a few useful links if you're looking at microphones. The DIY Media website has a page on microphone suggestions, going over the various types of microphones available. Choosing Microphones is a 4-minute video from lynda.com which has some helpful tips for deciding what kind of microphone will best suit your needs. Wistia's Learning Centre demonstrates the quality of sound achieved with different mics in this 4.5 minute video.
Software To get the best results, you probably don't want to use the same software you'd use for normal video projects for your stop motion project. You're concerned with different things: how long each image stays on the screen, being able to adjust for things like slight shifts in your camera, and subtle changes in lighting between individual frames. While you can use a normal piece of video editing software, like Windows Movie Maker or iMovie, you'll have an easier time if you use a piece of software designed for stop motion. If you'd prefer to use a normal piece of video editing software, head over to the video basics toolkit for some suggestions.

Mobile	Desktop
NFB StopMo Studio, an app developed by the National Film Board of Canada, bills itself as 'the most complete stop motion app in the App Store'. The app allows you to import pictures from your photo gallery, or shoot directly from your iPad. The video below, while created by a professional stop-motion animator, was filmed and edited entirely within the app. Platform: iOS6 & iPad 2 or later Price: $2.99 Tutorials: The NFB produced a series of videos explaining how to use the app. Clayframes is an Android app with a lot of really useful features. Most notable is the ability to use 'onion-skinning'—a technique that consists of overlaying a transparent version of the last shot you took over the camera's current view, allowing you to position everything just right. The app has functionality for recording and editing, and allows you to record your animation and export it to another application for editing, or vice-versa. For an example of what an amateur can do with this, have a look at YouTube user knallpulver71's video below. Platform: Android 2.2 and up Price: $3.59, free demo Tutorials: None available.	Dragonframe is high-end, professional stop-motion animation software. Used to create several feature-length films, including Tim Burton's Frankenweenie. Dragonframe works with almost any camera, but works best with Canon and Nikon DSLRs, allowing you to adjust settings and use your camera from your computer. Platform: Windows XP or higher, Mac OS X Snow Leopard or higher Price: $295 Tutorials: Written user guides and a small number of video tutorials are available. iStopMotion is a fully-featured stop motion capture and editing program. iStopMotion works with the live preview feature of Nikon and Canon DSLRs, and allows onion skinning, rotoscoping, and gives you the ability to trigger your camera from your phone, or use your phone as a wireless camera, immediately adding your pictures to your stop motion project. Platform: Mac OS X Lion or later Price: $49.99, with a five-day trial Tutorials: Help database, product forum, and email and phone technical support available. Stop Motion Action! is a Windows-only stop motion program. While the basic version is limited in resolution and caps the framerate at 15 fps, it's cheaper than the other programs we've highlighted, at about $30. Onionskinning and other important features are available, although DLSR control is not, in the entry-level version. Platform: Windows XP or higher Price: $32.5 after education discount, limited free demo version Tutorials: Blog-style tutorials.

How Do I Do It?

Step 1: Plan (edit)

Questions to ask

Curate or Create? Does a similar resource (to the one you're envisioning) already exist online somewhere? You may want to check Creative Commons licensed sources as well as resources in the Public Domain to start with. If there are images, slide sets, or other works you want to use that are appropriately licensed, ask yourself if you can use them and build some context around it specific to your goals. In other words, can you curate content by building some activities or context around resources that already exist, or do you need to create something new? Here is an example of curated content (discussion questions, self-assessment, etc) around a YouTube video describing MOOCs.

What are the objectives? Identifying broad goals can help you define what your students should learn and understand, while the objectives provide specific and measurable outcomes (Gagne, Wager, Golas & Keller, 2005 in Frey and Sutton, 2010). Consider:

What do you want your audience to learn while watching your presentation?
What approach is best suited to support that learning (i.e. a narrative, an explanation, an animation, etc.)?

What should the impact be? Consider the potential impact your project will have on the learning environment. How will learners use the video/slides? Will you need to create some guiding questions, things to watch for, and follow up activities so that learners can use what they learned? You may want to consider what activities the presentation may replace (eg. tutorial, lecture) and how you can use that time for other activities to support the learning from the presentation. In addition, knowing the needs of your learners helps you target the content and approach to them - making it more likely that you will be producing a useful learning resource.

How will the resource be assessed? Consider the measures you will be using to see if your presentation has had the desired impact on learning (test scores, performance in collaborative activities, etc.). A good instructional design principle is to ensure alignment between learning objectives, assessment and the activity (associated with the presentation).

What's the timeline like? Check with colleagues who have made stop motion videos to get a sense of timeline. If this is your first time, allow a lot more time for recording, editing, re-recording, and tweaking the entire presentation, than you think you need.

Testing your equipment

Once you have gathered your equipment and software, experiment with it. Test everything: create a test presentation and audio track, and export them to your editing software to familiarize yourself with the process and reveal any issues with file format or audio quality you'll want to fix before production. Make sure your chosen tools can do what you need them to.

Planning Resources

The 'Plan It' section of the DIY media website.
A Model for Developing Multimedia Learning Projects Frey,B; Sutton, J. (2010)
Purdue's Video and Multimedia Learning Guidelines. Excellent resource to help you design your resource for maximum learning benefit (using principles of effective multimedia design).
The Media Scholarship Project: Strategic Thinking about Media and Multimodal Assignments in the Liberal Arts :an excellent overview of the process of designing multimodal projects from a faculty perspective. Full of good, practical information.
DIY Media: Plan It Resource
Scripting for explainer videos by Lee Lefever at Common Craft
Basic storyboarding for explainer videos by Lee Lefever at Common Craft

Forms

Step 2: Script & Storyboard (edit)

Every minute you spend planning your project is worth two or three minutes of designing, recording, and editing. Before you do anything else, download and fill out this worksheet. Here's the completed worksheet for an example presentation. Try to be as detailed as possible: it'll make life easier later on.

Chunk content

One of the most important features in the planning worksheet is the 'Generate Concepts' section. Going through this will help you break your content down into easily digestible sections. This is called chunking content, which is an instructional design technique that involves breaking down large themes into manageable chunks or concepts. For example, if you intend to cover 4 concepts in a single video of 20 minutes, four five-minute videos might be a better strategy. Recent research indicates that the optimal length for student engagement seems to be be 6 minutes or less. (Guo, 2013).

Review principles

Carnegie-Mellon's principles for learning, Merrill's First Principles of Instruction, Gagne's 9 events of instruction and Mayer's principles for multimedia development are useful references for helping you think about how to approach your presentation as a learning resource. Points 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9 from Mayer's Principles are especially pertinent.

Storyboarding

After you've selected one chunk to start with, you can fill out this storyboarding worksheet. Here's the completed storyboard for an example project. You can fill this out however you want to: for more traditional video projects, storyboards usually include sketches of each scene with notes attached, but you can feel free to use text, draft your script, sketch diagrams you might use, or some combination of those and other techniques. Try to be complete: having a mental and physical image of each scene will help you put everything together.

Storyboard template (from UBC Studios) along with their full guide to the technical aspects of DIY media production: Production Basics: UBC Media Makers.
Storyboarding tips and examples: an excellent resource from Penn State.
For 'explainer' videos (like the ones produced by Common Craft) check out explainer tips for creating simple storyboards by Common Craft.

Create a script

Writing a script will save you time in the long run. Include what you want to say, and when you want to say it, with respect to what's happening on-screen. Once your script is complete, you'll get a sense of the flow of your project and can be able to make decisions about editing more easily.

Before you go to record audio, make sure to rehearse your script(s) in order to avoid unnecessary pauses and interjections.
Time your script to ensure it fits within the 3-6 minute timeframe you should be aiming for.
Try to read and write naturally: not only will people learn better (Mayer's 10^th principle) but it'll be easier to read from: encountering the words it is when you'd usually say it's is distracting, and can throw you off.
Review your script and storyboard for extraneous material, and remove it: stop motion is hugely labour-intensive, and the shorter your video is, the likelier it'll be watched. Staying focused on your topic is important. (Mayer's 1^st principle.)

Pre-Production Resources

For scripting pointers look at scripting for explainer videos by Lee Lefever at Common Craft

Step 3: Take pictures (edit)

Gather your equipment

Read through the What Do I Need section, and gather your equipment: a camera, a set of objects, and lights.
- You don't need a microphone right away: you'll be recording audio after you take your pictures.
- If you have access to software that allows 'onionskinning', or the ability to superimpose your camera's current view over the last photo taken, make use of it! This technique will save you a lot of time, and make your end product look a lot better.
Make sure that all of your equipment works, and works together: if you haven't already, put together a five-second clip. If you have file format problems, or your memory card doesn't work with your computer, you want to find out before you've spent hours taking pictures you can't use.

Set up your recording environment

You have a couple of things to consider when setting up your recording area: lighting, camera stability, and your ability to adjust your set of objects.

Lighting: The most common lighting setup is a three-point lighting setup.
- A single light, or two lights, can work well. Have a look at this video for some more lighting advice. While it's focused on making stop motion with Lego, also known as Brickfilm, it's still great advice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtzUlqDQq00
- It's important that you have complete control over the lighting when you're making a stop motion animation. If you have the sun lighting your presentation, and you're taking pictures over the course of an hour, the sun will move. You might not notice it, but when everything is sped up, your lighting will change dramatically over the course of your video.
- Make sure you aren't getting in the way of your light. Unless you stay perfectly still when you're taking your pictures, your shadow will move around in your video.

Camera stability: whatever you're using for a camera, and however you're mounting it, make sure it's rock-solid. If the camera moves every time you press the button, your video will shake. The best solution is using a piece of software that lets you take pictures with the click of a mouse, as opposed to hitting a button on your camera.
- Take extra care to avoid bumping into or moving your camera: you'll never get it back exactly like it was, and resulting in a sudden jump in whatever you're filming. The same goes for lighting: once you've set it up, it shouldn't move until you're putting it away.

Set of objects: no matter what you're using as your medium, make sure you can adjust the objects you're animating easily. If you can't put them into the positions you need without reaching around lights or camera, try to set things up differently: you're likely to bump something which shouldn't move.

Take your pictures

If you've set everything up nicely, you shouldn't have any problems taking the pictures you need.

Make sure you won't be interrupted: put a sign on your door to make sure you won't be bothered. Stop motion requires concentration, and the last thing you want is to be surprised and knock something over.
Use your storyboard and script: try to stick to what you've written down and drawn out as closely as possible. Improvising is doable, but more difficult than working from a script.
Work in small chunks: you'll want to take all the pictures from each scene in one shot, to keep the lighting constant. As much as you can, try to keep your shooting short. It's easier to edit, and you're less likely to make a mistake in the middle of a long shot.
Consider frame rate: try to decide on a frame rate before recording. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as you're consistent. Keep the duration of each frame in mind as you're recording, and adjusting your objects. You'll want to make larger adjustments between shots for lower frame rates.

Record your audio

The quality of your audio factors greatly into the perception of your video: a small increase in audio quality is worth a much larger increase in video quality.

Speak slowly and clearly: make a trial recording, and play it back to yourself: you might be surprised by how quickly you're talking.
Eliminate echoes and other noises: record in a room with soft surfaces, like couches and cushions, and reduce or eliminate electrical sounds, such as computer fans and other appliances.
- It might look a bit silly, but making a fort out of couch cushions and recording your audio inside of it will mimic the effect of the padding used in recording studios, and improve the quality of your audio.
Avoid rooms with echoes or fans: even imperceptible fan sounds may be picked up by an external mic.
Improve your sound quality: use a noise-reducing microphone, buy or build a pop filter, and keep the mic close to your mouth.
Record your audio all at once: if you have to take down your equipment and set it up again, the audio will sound different.

Find B-roll content

While most commonly used in documentaries, B-roll footage (supplemental or alternative video intercut in the main shot) can be useful in all video projects. Check out these three sources of learning and UBC-related B-roll footage.

Find OER : Open Professionals Education Network
UBC's Image Sources Guide
UBC's Public Domain Guide

Copyright

Whatever material you include in your video, make sure that you aren't violating copyright law by using it. Have a look at these links to find out more.

UBC's Image Citation Guide
UBC's Creative Commons Guide
UBC's Copyright Guidelines
If you want to incorporate UBC branded material, have a look at this page for video intros and outros.

Step 4: Edit (edit)

What your editing process will look like depends on what software you use: a program made specifically for stop motion will have features a standard video editing program, like Final Cut, won't have. There are too many programs to list specific tips and tricks for all of them: make sure you pay attention to the checklist items and the tips at the bottom of the page.

Software

While there are a lot of options for editing videos, UBC staff and faculty can use Lynda.com to view tutorials on video editing in Camtasia (available to UBC staff, students, and faculty) and Final Cut Pro. You might also use Audacity, a free and open-source program, to record and edit your audio.

Final Cut Pro X Essential Training
Final Cut Pro X is a powerful video editing program widely used by professional videographers and filmmakers. It is available for use at various Mac Workstations in UBC Vancouver Library locations. This course will help you with the full editing process, from preparation to exporting. Or, for students: Basic Tutorial for iMovie and Final Cut Pro.
Camtasia for PC and Camtasia for mac: Using Camtasia and need some training? These short (2-5 min) videos offer excellent training support for beginners to advanced.
Auadacity is a fairly powerful program to help with audio editing.

Step 5: Publish (edit)

YouTube is an option if you don't require privacy or security settings for your videos. YouTube enables you to share your video with the world, reach a wide audience, and students don't need an account to view it. Set up your own YouTube account, or use UBC's account with this documentation.
Kaltura is a UBC-hosted service and therefore offers a layer of security and content moderation. Kaltura offers options for learning activities that require students to record, upload and share video content through Connect. Compared to YouTube, Kaltura offers more granular control over content and contributors. Here are two documentations, detailing how to upload your video to Kaltura and how to share videos.
After you've finished your project, let us know! Get in touch with the CTLT to have your media added to the list of examples, and to join the DIY community!

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