Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique that records changes made to bits of paper or fabric puppets or plasticine figures. The objects are changed in very small increments between individually photographed frames and then assembled in a software application. They appear to be in motion when the series of frames is played back.
The usual frame rate for animation is 12 frames per second, which was doubled for the old US cinema standard of 24 fps. “Doubling” was just a way to ensure a 24 fps speed in the old analog film system, which had no speed controls. These days animation applications can give each frame its own speed.
Stop motion animation was used in the original animated shorts and pilot episodes of South Park using construction paper and traditional stop motion cutout animation techniques. (See this video). Subsequent episodes have been produced in Maya, a powerful and expensive 3D animation program.
Claymation productions like Wallace and Gromit use the Aardman Animator , an app developed by their studio and available free.
Dragonframe stop motion animation software is relatively inexpensive and has been used to make a number of full-length motion videos, including Disney’s Frankenweenie and Laika’s Coraline, The Boxtrolls, ParaNorman. and Shaun the Sheep. It has also been used to shoot stop motion scenes in live action movies, including the holochess scene in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and numerous stop motion shorts. The control pad simplifies the animating process, as can be seen in some of the videos on this page.
Dragonframe software was originally created for the award-winning stop-motion “Dragon” commercial for United Airlines by Jamie Caliri. It premiered during SuperBowl XL (2006). He created a number of other short animated films, including “The Sun and the Seed,” a film made for a friend and mentor who was suffering from lung cancer. The film was shown at a benefit to help with his hospital costs.
YouTube has a Dragonframe channel here
More free animation software
OpenToonz — Free, developed by Digital Video S.p.A. in Italy, OpenToonz has been customized by Studio Ghibli, and used for the creation of its works for many years. Dwango has launched the OpenToonz project in cooperation with Digital Video and Studio Ghibli.
Pencil2D — Free, open source, easy to use
Blender — Free, open source, 2 and 3-D animations
Stykz — Stick figure animation, Free
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