What is Stop Motion Animation?
Stop motion animation is method of animation that relies on the movement of physical objects to build an image sequence that when combined creates the illusion of movement. We provide this service under our brand, Box Rebellion Animation.
Most often, these animations require between 10 and 24 individual movements, which are photographed individually, per second of finished video.
Depending on the complexity of the shoot, even a short animation could require the creation of any number of sets, puppets, paper cutouts or other materials used for the animation. Some animations employ common objects that are ready to animate “out of the box” like candy or food items, office supplies or even people!
This type of animation lends itself really well to short clips used on social media. Below is an example of our very first stop motion production for a client’s Valentine’s Day message. Below that is a stop motion animation we did to promote the Lego Towers exhibit in 2023 for Durham Museum!
The charming quality of these animations are reminiscent of the Rankin and Bass animated Christmas specials from the 60s and 70s, as well as, more modern renditions such as Wallace and Grommit, Nightmare Before Christmas, and most recently, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinnochio released in December of 2022.
What is the Process for Stop Motion Animation?
1) Developing the overall concept, theme and visual style of your animation in order to effective communicate your messaging.
2) Determine overall length…for social media, you’ll want to keep it generally under 90 seconds.
3) Storyboard the animation and nail down timing and scene structure.
4) Build or gather the materials needed for each scene.
5) Animate scenes based on storyboard.
6) Post-production editing.
7) First draft review.
8) Final edits.
9) Schedule release…and bask in the glory of the “oohs and ahhs”!
How Long Does Stop Motion Animation Take?
Stop Motion Animation can be one of the most labor-intensive (and pre-planning intensive) projects to achieve (so it isn’t cheap). Many factors can add or reduce the time it takes to produce a well-crafted final production.