10 Jun Stop Motion Movie Making
Looking for a unique way to combine technology and outdoor activities this summer? Make a nature-based Stop Motion Animation video at home!
Stop by the Children’s Desk this summer and pick up an infographic on the basics of Stop Motion movie making and library recommended apps to use.
A traditional movie involves characters, plotlines, and various settings or scenes. This is how we’ve structure our Stop Motion Sundays here at the library, encouraging the kids to write a storyboard first.
Plan Your Story
However, you can also make a beautiful stop motion film using natural objects without this narrative-based structure. We suggest sourcing for natural elements first. Do this while on a nature walk or playing in your backyard. Collect items you may wish to use. Fill a bucket full of whatever you find. Let the objects you discover give you ideas for the movie theme. Explore without intention and let nature’s objects inspire your ideas! Perhaps you find flowers in various shades and sizes and want to make a video of your name spelled out in flowers.
Or go with the classic narrative structure: Collect rocks and paint them to look like various bugs to use in your movie. For example, you can make your “rock bugs” march up a dirt mound, tumble back down, and splash into a mud puddle.Use a combination of toys from your home and nature props. How about filming your LEGO mini-figures building a house made out of sticks. What if a giant tomato from your garden dropped from the sky and tumbles the stick house to the ground? Another idea is to tie fishing line to objects and have them fly into the scene. We’ve seen some super inventive movies made at our Stop Motion programs in 2019 so far. We would love to see what you create this summer on your own!
