Learn Movie Making

with Stop Motion

Animation

by
Nate & Ryan Eckerson

Learn Movie Making with Stop Motion Animation

Published and distributed by
NR Productions
PO Box 967
North Dighton, MA 02764
www.nr-productions.com
1st Edition

Windows and Windows Movie Maker are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

Other designations of products and companies may be the trademarks of their
respective owners. Twelve Stones Research is not associated with any
product or vendor mentioned in this book.

2006 Nate and Ryan Eckerson

All rights reserved. This book may not be copied,
reproduced or transmitted in part or in whole in any form
without the written consent of the copyright holders.

Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................1
How this book works........................................................2
How movies work, and a short history of animation ....3
Puppet Animation........................................................................8
Object Animation.........................................................................8
Pixilation......................................................................................9
Papermation................................................................................9
Sand & Paint Animation..............................................................9

What you need to get started.........................................10

What you need #1: Computer.......................................................10
What you need #2: a camera........................................................12
What you need #3: Animation program.........................................14
What you Need #4: Sound.............................................................16
What you need #5: Lights..............................................................16
What you need #6: Video editor....................................................17
Windows Movie Maker..............................................................18
iMovie........................................................................................18
Professional editing software....................................................19
What you need #7: Miscellaneous stuff that'll be handy................21

Creating Stories...............................................................23
Screenplays...................................................................................24
Storyboarding.................................................................................25

Building a good set.........................................................27

Indoor Sets.....................................................................................27
Outdoor sets..................................................................................29
Securing your sets..........................................................................31

Lighting............................................................................33
Lighting problems...........................................................................34
Lighting Effects...............................................................................35

Setting up your camera..................................................36

Camera controls.............................................................................37
Using a digital video camera..........................................................39
Analog Camcorders..................................................................40
Digital Camcorders.........................................................................42
Using a digital still camera..............................................................43
First problem: Camera design...................................................44
Second problem: Frame conversion.........................................45
Other things to consider............................................................46
Keeping the camera steady............................................................47

The big moment--animating!..........................................54

Quick start......................................................................................55
Animation technique.......................................................................56
The walk cycle and the run cycle...............................................56
Walk cycle.................................................................................56
How fast do they move?............................................................57
Run cycle..................................................................................58
Easy jumping.............................................................................58
Animating conversations...........................................................59
Don't forget to have fun!............................................................60
Fine points of the animation software.............................................60
Onion skinning..........................................................................62
Getting smooth playback...........................................................63
Video format..............................................................................63
Compression.............................................................................65

Adding sound to your movie..........................................67

Recording sound............................................................................67
Audio files.......................................................................................70
Advanced audio.............................................................................70
Music..............................................................................................72

Editing in Windows Movie Maker..................................73

Overview........................................................................................73
Editing basics.................................................................................76
Organization...................................................................................77
Introduction to Windows Movie Maker...........................................78
Collection..................................................................................81
Importing Video.........................................................................82
Importing Sound........................................................................84
Missing sources........................................................................84
Timeline....................................................................................87
Adding video to the timeline......................................................88

Adding Audio to the Timeline....................................................89

Viewer.......................................................................................91
Moving clips...................................................................................95
Trimming and Splitting..............................................................97
Copying and pasting..................................................................99
Storyboard...............................................................................100
Transitions..............................................................................100
Effects..........................................................................................104
Titles............................................................................................105
Recording Sound and Dialog:..................................................108
Exporting: making it ready to share.............................................109
Editing: Tips and tricks.................................................................113
For scenes with little movement..............................................113
Easy conversations.................................................................114
Live action capture..................................................................114
Additional Movie Maker Resources.........................................117
Windows Movie Maker shortcuts............................................118

Special Effects on a budget.........................................120

Flashlight effects..........................................................................120
Fire..........................................................................................121
Rocket Engine.........................................................................121
Big clouds of smoke................................................................122
Cozy look................................................................................123
Lightning flashes..........................................................................123
Using a green screen (or blue screen).........................................123
Going beyond: Digital effects.......................................................124

Showing and Sharing Your Animations.....................127

Playing animations on the computer............................................127
Making a DVD..............................................................................128
Connecting your computer to a TV set.........................................128
Online movie collections...............................................................129
Respecting other's rights..............................................................130

Video files and formats.................................................132

Container Formats.......................................................................132
File name extensions..............................................................133
Codecs & Compression...............................................................134
Container Format List...................................................................136
Codecs.........................................................................................139
AVI codecs..............................................................................140
QuickTime codecs..................................................................143

Using VirtualDub...........................................................146
Compressing a File......................................................................148
Converting video clips into pictures.........................................152
Simple Editing with VirtualDubMod..........................................154

Acknowledgments.........................................................156

Introduction
People have always loved stories.
You can tell a story just by talking. Or, you can write your
story down and share it with others. And you might draw
some pictures to make your story more life-like. The best
stories are the ones that seem almost real.
That's why we love movies.
Ever since the 1880's, when Thomas Edison invented the
first practical way to capture and share real life action,
people have been fascinated by movies.
Of all the ways we can tell stories, movies may be the
most powerful.
Did you ever finish reading a great book and think, I wish I
could make a movie of this!
Or, did you ever watch a movie of a book you had read
and say, They ruined it! I could do a better job!
Or maybe you have a great story idea of your own.
Stop Motion Animation is a way to make your own movies
without a big budget, a cast of talented actors and a studio
full of life size sets. You won't need to draw any cartoon
figures either! Your actors are probably around your
house already, and your home computer gives you a way
to film and edit your story.
This book will tell you how to start today!

How this book works

To enjoy this book to its fullest extent, you need a
computer. We recommend a machine running Windows
XP, but you can do many of the things in the book with
Windows 98 Second Edition. See the back cover for a full
list of requirements. A Mac computer is great, but the
software CD in the back of this book is only for Windows.
You can still do most of the activities with a Mac.
This book is written for those familiar with basic computer
terms. We're talking basic here: if you can open, edit, and
save a document in a text editor, you are fully capable of
completing any task in this book. You should also know
how to organize files in folders and install software from a
CD.
A little knowledge of photography is helpful, but not
necessary. If you've ever used a digital camera and imageediting program, you're way ahead. (We didn't know a
thing about those subjects when we started!)
If you see a word in bold, look for a definition box in the
same chapter to explain what it means.
The most important requirement is imagination, creativity,
and the desire to see your ideas become reality. Bring
plenty of outside-the-box ingenuity too, because you're
going to need it!
Expect to have fun!

Chapter 1

How movies work, and a

short history of animation
Time for a little science! Once you understand how the
moving picture works, you'll see how toys, models, and
everyday objects come to life in a stop-motion movie.
In its most basic form, a movie is many, many pictures of a
moving object. When these pictures are shown quickly,
one after the other, the eye is tricked, and sees motion.
This effect is called persistence of vision.

Illustration 1: The thaumatrope

TV's, computers, movie projectors or anything with a

moving picture uses the persistence of vision effect.
3

Early "moving picture" inventions were quite different from

today's TV set. We'll show you a few of them.
The Thaumatrope was the first persistence of vision toy. It
was made of string and a piece of paper, with pictures
printed on both sides. When you twirled the strings, the
paper spun around, and the pictures blended together into
a scene. Usually each side of the paper would contain half
a scene. When you spun the Thaumatrope, the two
scenes combined and you saw the entire thing.

Illustration 2: The zoetrope

The next invention was more interesting. The Zoetrope

showed something really moving instead of a still image.
By looking at the above picture you can get a better idea of
how the device worked. A series of pictures was printed
on a circular piece of material, and placed inside the
Zoetrope. By spinning the Zoetrope and looking through
the slits, you saw an endlessly looping animation, usually
of lions jumping through hoops, or horses galloping.
Zoetropes were a popular toy during the Victorian era.
We mention this next invention because there's a good
chance you've already seen one. Maybe you've made a
flipbook animation in the corner of your math notebook!
Flipbooks have nothing to do with stop motion, but are
4

Illustration 3: A flipbook

another example of persistence of vision.

The Zoetrope was improved with
the invention of the Praxinoscope,
a machine that used mirrors to
improve the Zoetrope's image. A
variant of the Praxinoscope could
project the image on a screen! The
inventor hoped to get rich with his
device, but by the time the
Praxinoscope
came
along,
audiences were already fascinated
with early movie projectors.
So what is a movie projector, and
how does it work?
Illustration 4: The
praxinoscope

When an early movie camera

"rolled film," it snapped
pictures; click, click, click... at
the rate of 24 pictures, or
"frames," per second. The
frames were recorded onto
rolls of photo film. When the
movie was done, the film had
to
be
developed
with
chemicals. When the film
returned from the lab, it had
become a long roll of
celluloid, a clear, plastic
material, on a reel, with the
frames printed on it. This was
"film" that could be played
with a movie projector.

Illustration 5: 8mm film--notice

the frames

The projector unwound the roll at the same rate the film
had moved through the camera. As the film unwound, the
frames passed in front of a bright light. The light shone
though the film, and the image created was magnified and
focused onto a large screen. There, everyone could see it.
So how was stop motion invented?
A movie camera was modified to capture a single frame at
a time, like an ordinary still camera. In front of the camera,
a miniature set with movable puppets was placed. Each
time the camera captured a frame, an object in the set was
moved. The object (let's say it was a figure of a person)
would move like it was walking, running, playing, or
sitting... in little increments. Filming a running sequence
would go like this:
Click! (move figure's hand) Click!
(move figure's hand) Click! (move figure's hand and foot)
Click! (move figure's hand and foot) Click!...

When the film was

played back, the figure
appeared
to
move, all thanks to
persistence of vision.
Filmmakers
were
quick to find uses for
the new technology.
Some of them animated pictures, drawing a
scene and gradually
changing the content.
Others used stop-motion to do impossible
things, the very first
special effects.

Illustration 6: Mother Goose by Ray

Harryhausen (1946)

Stop motion remained

in theaters throughout movie history. In America, handdrawn "cel" animation became more and more popular
(think Disney), while stop motion remained the realm of
special effects. Some of the more famous examples
remain, in movies like King Kong, and the work of Ray
Harryhausen.
While entirely stop-motion films were popular in other parts
of the world, the genre was slow to appear in the US. The
first popular stop-motion works were TV shows. Gumby
and Davy and Goliath are some well-known examples.
Bob the Builder is a stop-motion show that is popular
today.
Stop-motion films are more popular today than ever
before. Recent movies, like Wallace and Gromit: The
Curse of the Were Rabbit, Chicken Run, Tim Burton's
Corpse Bride, and others prove that stop-motion is not
only popular, but very profitable!
So what about you? You're probably not a professional
filmmaker with a big studio and lots of cash. Why should
7

you be interested in stop motion?

The home computer changed the world of filmmaking in a
big way. It put lots of creative power into the hands of
everyday people. You don't need a lot to create stop
motion films anymore. With this book, camera and a halfdecent computer, you can make movies that look better
than anything the early animators created.
Many people are discovering how easy and fun it is to
make stop-motion films. That's what this book is about!
Stop motion can refer to many different kinds of
animation. Here are some of them:

Puppet Animation
Simple skeletons, called armatures, are made out of a
thin, flexible material, usually wire, or special pieces of
metal. Clay, foam, rubber, fabric, and other things are
wrapped around this skeleton, until it looks like a
character. This character is animated with basic stopmotion technique.
Toys and action figures can be used instead of armatures.
(The creators of this book really like to make Brickfilms,
which are animations with LEGO bricks.)

Object Animation
Instead of a human or animal-like puppet, everyday
objects can star in your film. There is no limit to what you
can do with this technique! Anything on your desk, under
the bed, on the floor, or in the the drawer can be a star in
your film.
Most of what we've written about in this book applies to
puppet animation and object animation. But there's nothing
stopping you from experimenting with other forms.

Pixilation
In pixilation, (not to be confused with video pixelation)
people act like living armatures, moving one frame at a
time in sync with the camera. Interesting effects can be
achieved with pixilation. You can interact with your
characters and other fun stuff.

Papermation
Paper animation (sometimes called "cutout animation"),
describes any kind of stop-motion film made with flat
materials. Animating is done on a flat surface, like a table.
A camera is placed above the table, pointing straight
down. Anything flat can be animated; photos, card stock,
newspaper and magazine cutouts. If you're making a
movie with a travel theme, try moving a small figure across
a map and drawing a line in its trail.

Sand & Paint Animation

These two are difficult, but very unique. Sand animation is
done on top of a "lightbox"a glass-topped box with light
shining up from inside it. Similar to paper animation, the
camera is positioned above the box, pointing downwards.
Sand is visible as a black shadow on top of the glass. You
animate the sand by pushing it into new patterns.
Paint animation is similar. A lightbox can be used, but it is
optional. Instead, slow-drying paint is animated on a glass
surface. The changing, shifting motion of these methods is
very beautiful.