From
South Park to Star Wars, stop motion has been a force behind some of the most culturally important
TV shows and
movies of all time. The laborious process of adjusting a character’s expression and position manually was one of the only means of animation in the pre-CGI era, but iOS applications are reviving the nostalgic form of entertainment with apps suited even for the most amateur animators.
iStopMotion: DIY stop motion videos have
sparked creative interest among Gen Ys, and now iPad app
iStopMotion is introducing the technique to younger “Z”s. With the help of a yellow, spike-haired claymation assistant, the app demonstrates how to create simple 12-frame per second animations. To make a video, users simply set the stage, take a shot of the scene, slightly adjust the characters, and take the next picture. Once all the frames have been captured, a movie is rendered instantly. iStopMotion caters to novice animators, flaunting options like Camera Overlay which shows a live image of the previous picture so that changes can be monitored as they’re created.
PixStop: The
National Film Board of Canada has created the
PixStop app for iPad 2, a mobile studio that facilitates the creation of 13-minute movies comprised of up to 10,000 images each. Since the app was originally designed to be incorporated into classroom curricula as part of the
NFB education initiative, kids and novices alike can adapt to it quickly with the aid of tutorials and an intuitive interface. For a complete multimedia experience, filmmakers can import an accompanying soundtrack from their iTunes accounts. Plus, NFB also created a comprehensive online stop motion workshop,
StopMoStudio, which allows users to kick their special effects skills up a notch.
StopMotion Recorder: iPhone app
StopMotion Recorder is a point-and-click tool for creating homemade animated films in minutes. After setting up their movie’s starring objects, users tap the screen to shoot a photo, then can reposition the objects using the precision guide (or take more careful manual shots using the Onion Skin feature). A function called Clap mode triggers a shot when a loud noise is made so the positioning of the camera need not be disturbed. Filters such as
Lomography, Noir and Sepia can be layered on for added artistic touches, similar to
Instagram. And once completed, videos can be shared through email or social networks directly from the phone.
