stop motion software

[Nate Gordon]

What kind of software have people used for stop motion videos? Our Spanish teacher is interested in trying it out this spring with 6th graders. I'm about to try Frames, since it a) works with Mac and b) has an layout very similar to other Tech4Learning Products, which might make it easier for student and teacher alike. :-) But I'm open to suggestions...

[Alex Gordon]

At my school, the 5th grade does alexander Calder-style stop motion by making figures and a background, taking photographs, and then loading the photos into imovie.

In the 7th grade i do a kind of stop motion animation using Photoshop and imovie. The kids pick a background image and then add layers which they want to move. They move the layers, and save each movement as a seperate JPG. Then they load the JPG's into imovie.

these techniques are fairly labor inensive, but help get accross the idea that animation is a series of frames moving quicly.

[Sarah Hanawald]

How did it go this spring? This summer I am leading a Lego Robotics camp and a few of the students have made stop motion videos of the legos. You can see a few of the movies here, by tomorrow they should all be up.

We just used Windows movie maker. Just dumped all the photos into MM, then went to tools, options, and set the time delay to a second. The software worked pretty well. YMMV, the biggest variable I saw was whether the students had enough patience to take all the pictures they should.

Sarah

[Jenni Voorhees]

I have had great success with claymation using digital cameras and Frames, a program from Tech4Learning.
http://www.tech4learning.com/frames

It is inexpensive, but very kid-friendly and allows students to choose a music track and to do voice-overs. It has been really successful for me and the kids love it.