Stop motion is an animation filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated bit by bit and individually photographed so that when the photographs are edited one after the other in a video timeline, they appear to move when played back. Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints (puppet animation) or plasticine figures (clay animation or claymation) are most popular, remember “Wallace and Gromit” or “Isle of Dogs”. Stop motion is easy: you can do it with any digital camera or with your smartphone. But it requires patience and a bit of planning to get the trajectory and timing of your moving objects right. But it‘s a lot of fun to do. There are some good applications that help you produce this type of films; one particular nice tool is Cloudstopmotion. It ‘s very intuitive. The display gives you a preview of the motion, you can add sound, voice over and titles if you like. When you are finished, you can export your video to mp4 format for sharing or further editing.
Stop motion movie making is an effective pedagogical method for learners at all ages: it can involve brain storming, problem analysis, collaboration and coordination, awareness of time and space, storytelling, visual and IT literacy etc. Start your own stop motion project at https://cloudstopmotion.com/
