LETS SEE THE STEPSSSS TO MAKE A STOP-MOTION VIDEO

STEP 1: SHOOT YOUR ANIMATION Let’s say, for example, that you would like to make that sock move itself across the floor. Start at the beginning: place the sock somewhere and take your first photo. Remember, you want to use camera (still frame) mode, not movie mode. Using a tripod and only moving your object will make it appear as though your object is moving through your frame. Keeping the object in the same general area in each frame by moving the camera along with it will make it appear as though you are traveling with the object. It’s up to you. After you’ve taken your first photograph, move the sock slightly in the direction you want it to travel and take another photo. Move it again by the same distance, and take one more. Continue this until the sock reaches where you want it to stop. You can manipulate your object in creative ways to add visual interest to your film, just make sure that whatever movement your object makes is done slowly over several frames. Finally, if you make a mistake while shooting, delete that picture on your camera and take another. This will save you from having to edit your film later. STEP 2: DOWNLOAD YOUR PHOTOS Now that you’ve captured your images, you’ll need to get them onto your computer. This process varies widely from camera to camera and computer to computer. Consult your camera guide and software “Help” if you are unfamiliar with this process. We’ll be using iPhoto and iMovie for the Mac, but you should be able to do the same with the Windows and Linux software listed at the end of this tutorial. First, import your image files to iPhoto from the camera, and give them their own album. Once your photos have been imported, close iPhoto and open iMovie. STEP 3: FIND YOUR PHOTOS IN IMOVIE Create a new iMovie project and call it whatever you like. Now click on the “Media” button to the right above your timeline and select “Photos” at the top right of the window. (On older versions of iPhoto, you’ll click the “Photos” button instead of the “Media” button.) Select your stop-motion album. All of your photos should now appear in order. STEP 4: ANIMATE YOUR PHOTOS In order for your animated short to play properly, you must tell iMovie how long you want each photo to appear before showing the next one. It’s kind of like creating a slideshow, except instead of giving each image a few seconds, you give it only a fraction of a second. The timing you choose will affect the overall tempo and length of your film. For our sock example we used a duration of 3 frames-per-photo. Since videos you create in iMovie usually play at 30 frames-per-second, a setting of 3 frames-per-photo means you’ll see 10 photos every second. Now you can see why you have to shoot so many photos! If you use the 3 frames-per-photo setting, you can easily estimate how many photos you’ll need to create a movie of a given length. In our example we used around 100 photos, for 10 seconds of video. If we wanted to make an animation exactly 30 seconds long, we’d shoot 300 photos. Time in iMovie appears in “0:00″ format (see figure 3). The number before the colon is the number of seconds and the number after the colon is the number of frames (so 3 frames-per-photo looks like this “0:03″). This next step is very important, so stay with us! In iMovie, select all of the photographs in your stop-motion album (the quick way to do this is to click on the very first photo and then, holding down the shift key, scroll down and click on the last photo.) Now click “Show Photo Settings” and type in “0:03″ for your duration in the floating window that appears. Click the Apply button and your photos will start getting sucked into the timeline at the bottom of the window. [Older versions of iPhoto let you set the duration in your editing window without clicking "Show Photo Settings."] Once iMovie’s finished filling the timeline, hit play. You just created your first stop-motion animated video short! FINAL TOUCHES: MUSIC AND SHARING To fine tune your animation, you can slow it down by choosing to use more than 3 frames-per-photo. You can also add music to your short by dragging MP3s or AIFF files to the timeline, or browsing your iTunes library from within iMovie. To share your stop-motion video, you’ll want to convert it to QuickTime. The steps in this process depend on which version of iMovie you are using. In general, look for “Export” or “Share” options, and try one of the default options. If you want to get more advanced, start by trying “Sorenson 3″ as your codec for good quality and decent file size. Your iMovie help section will have more detail on exporting to Quicktime. That’s it! Don’t forget to save your project often as you go along, and check outVimeo — a cool place to upload your finished videos! Here’s our finished sock movie. Have fun, be creative and always EXPERIMENT!