Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion animation is a way of making films by moving an object a tiny amount and taking a photo, again and again. Play the photos back quickly and your object moves all by itself. It's the patient art behind some of the world's best-loved animated films, and all you need to start is a camera, a few models and a steady hand.

Claymation uses characters made from modelling clay, so you can squish them into new expressions between shots.

Puppet animation uses posable models with a wire skeleton inside, called an armature.

Cut-out animation moves flat paper shapes around a background. Low-tech, high charm.

Brickfilms star toy building bricks and tiny plastic figures.

Pixilation turns real people into the puppets. Shoot a frame, shuffle a step, repeat, and you can float across a field without moving your legs.

Every photo is a frame. Show frames quickly enough and your brain fills in the gaps, just like a flip book. Films show many frames every second, so a few seconds of footage can mean a lot of photos. Smaller moves give smoother motion. Most apps use onion skinning, a see-through ghost of your last shot, so you can line up the next one. Keep the camera still and the light steady, or your masterpiece will flicker like a haunted house.

Your Activity Leader walks you through the basics, then you plan your film on a storyboard: quick sketches of each scene, no drawing skills needed. You make your characters from modelling clay and whatever else is to hand, then build a set or shoot in front of a green screen, which can be swapped for any background later. Then comes the slow, oddly addictive bit: move, snap, repeat.

Good news: nobody expects a masterpiece. Stop motion is forgiving, and wonky clay characters are half the charm. It's a brilliant one to do with friends, as someone always ends up voicing the villain. Watching your finished film for the first time, however short, is a genuinely proud moment.

You might also like Silhouette Puppet Making, Lego Robots and Drone Flying.

See all Camp Wildfire activities