Keep These Tricks Up Your Sleeve While Rendering A Stop Motion Animation

Before the emergence of fully-blown CGI animation, the film industry employed the traditional animation ways where every single frame was drawn by hand.

If you needed to create a video that involved 3D models, then motion animation was the only option available. 

Despite the widespread evolution of technology, like there being many more interactive and unique ways to render a stunning video, stop motion hasn’t completely faded away in popularity. 

Rather, it’s receiving even more appreciated as an art form as the content creators push the boundaries of possibilities that come with stop motion. 

Follow These Tips To Do A Stop Motion Animation 

It should come as no surprise that stop motion animation is highly time-consuming as it requires efforts and dedication to shoot even a normal video under ideal circumstances.

If you have decided to try doing a stop motion animation, you need to have patience, perseverance, and an exorbitant amount of attention to intricacies in a scene.

It’s time that we take a look at ways to do stop motion animation step-by-step and walk through all the necessary procedures needed to be executed.

First, you should know all the necessary materials needed namely – 

Models To Shoot 

The props and models required to shoot your video can be diverse and rely completely upon your thoughts for the animation and what kind of ideas you have brainstormed. 

Many creators who are new in the domain of stop motion animation often find great usage and versatility in Lego; however, it can get really expensive to purchase a large set from scratch. 

Choosing The Right Scene

The setting for your stop motion animation can be just about anything as per your requirements. 

If you want content that deals with the food industry, a simple kitchen counter with some props such as mixers or cutlery can take the main focus. 

You can choose to hand draw imagery or showcase other props to render a backdrop to the scene. A green screen might also bear decent results if you’d want to experiment by digitally inserting backgrounds.

A Decent HD Camera 

Stop motion animation needs just as precision in photography as required in the editing phase. Hence, you should have the best camera you can get your hands on. Using a phone or tablet is also an option. 

If you are using a phone to shoot your video, make sure to adjust the ISO settings, white balance, and proper lighting so that the shot doesn’t appear muted out or too pronounced. 

Also, you need to have a big enough SD card or storage space to keep all the images during the shoot. Storing all files in a single storage device can be extremely convenient to merge while editing.s

A Stable Camera Rig 

While shooting a stop motion clip, stability is one of the most important factors to take into account. If the tripod isn’t stationary for the shooting duration, you will receive very chaotic footage in the final cut. 

Luminescent Lighting Set Up 

Uniform lighting is paramount for an immaculate shot. A simple desk lamp might suffice in some occasions, but make sure that you don’t have natural light flooding your shot as it would alter the course of the shoot. 

Editing Software 

Editing is the most important step while producing a stop motion animation. Every single shot clicked is nothing but raw input for the editing software that congregates them to define a meaningful output.

Software developers have become wary of the requirements of stop motion animators over the years; therefore, there are a copious amount of options available for editing and file management purposes.

While editing, you need to have a clear idea of what you desire to achieve. People often fail to consider that when working out how to do stop motion animation, having a storyboard is a must. 

You simply cannot work things out based on a hunch, and any attempts to do so can leave you with unworkable stills. 

Every hour spent planning your storyboard can help you execute things faster and efficiently without having to alter scenes and props time and again.

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Shooting And Preparations

Once you have all the above-mentioned gear ready, it’s time to start shooting. Rig up your lighting and camera, and put your models and scenery into place. 

  1. Set up your equipment – Stop motion animation is a very time-consuming process, and thus, you would be engaged for the long haul. Thereby, you must have adequate time and batteries so that you don’t have to deconstruct mid-shoot.
  2. Get a test shot – This is to make sure that your lighting and camera settings suit your goals before you click hundreds of pictures.
  3. Commence shooting – Click a photo, shift the model by a tiny magnitude, then repeat. While shooting, your shadow mustn’t be captured even the slightest, and neither should it block the lighting of the scene.
  4. Winding up the Shoot – Have all the storage space available at hand when you are close to ending your shoot. Once you’re finished, export all the raw files to your main editing suite.
  5. Edit your project – This step is very important and is dependent on mainly two factors; your creativity and the stop motion animation software you’ve employed.

While editing, make sure that all individual stills are all of the same lengths. You might also want to add in some audio or speech to render a more dynamic perspective to the film in terms of audio. 

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Adding some audio and animations is always considered as a good idea to boost your creativity and add a touch of uniqueness to your content.

Final Words

If you have decided to enter the domain of stop motion animation shooting, start small, act patiently, and keep improvising until you render even bigger and better stop motion animations. 

By following the points mentioned above, you must have a clear idea of all the equipment needed as-well-as some tips to obtain fruitful results. 

Choose your final editing software wisely as it can make a difference, considering stop motion animations are mostly given life in the editing phase.

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