Stop Motion

Stop Motion Video

Stop Motion Animation is a video or film process that produces the illusion of movement from a series of photographs of stationary objects. By moving objects in succession, students will create the illusion of movement.

Students will create a character with a four part movement and contrasting background elements turned in as a looping gif.

The unit includes one exercise, two video loops, a rubric and reflection.

Character Movement in Four Parts

Exercise One: Character Movements

Analogous Background

Analogous Color Scheme

Moving Elements

Character Creation

• Contrasting Color Scheme

• Four movements

• Equally sized elements
(consistent head size, torso size, foot size, etc.)

Not so good...

• Needs background movement

• Timing of movements is off
(should repeat fourth position to extend swimming motion)

Better...

• Background moves with character

• Foreground layer adds visual interest

• Motion of character is more fluid

Also good...

• Same background, new character

• Character contrasts with environment

• Foreground and background elements with character occupying mid-ground

Example 2: Bicycling

Character in Four Movements

• Character loop happens multiple times across screen

• Three layers of movement (background, middle ground, foreground)

• Character enters on the left, leaves on the right

• GIF loops - it begins and ends with the same elements in the frame

Example 3: Deer

Two-legged Walk Cycle Tips

4 Position Walk Cycle

• Position 1 & 3 are lower

• 2 & 4 are taller because one of the legs is straight

• The back leg and arm should be a darker value than the front leg and arm

Grid Worksheet

Video Mask

• Align the feet to the ground, rather than to the head. The foot holds the weight of the character when in gravity.

• Try to center the body in each frame, so that the body bobs up and down but doesn't move much from side to side.

• Fill in the back leg and arm so that it is easier to see the movement. Keeping the back leg and arm behind the other body parts is critical for understanding forward movement.

• Use two values of one color to differentiate the back leg and arm from the front.