How to Create Stunning Stop Motion Films with Your Phone: A Step-by-Step Guide
What is a stop motion you ask?… It looks a bit like an animation. It’s when your subject is manually manipulated in small increments (within the camera frame) to make it appear as though your subject is moving. It’s great for creating eye catching pieces on social media to showcase your product or service. Below I’ve included a list of tips to help you create your own stop motion, all captured on your phone camera and edited on a phone app, plus and some videos how it’s done.
Top tips to create a Stop Motion:
Keep the camera still. Set your camera on a tripod or lean it against something (I’ve used a mug before) This is an important step as any bumps you make to the camera will result in the final film being jumpy which distracts from the animation effect.
I think stop-motion works better if you have a pre-plan with how and where the elements in your frame are going to move. Practice it before you shoot the final one. Sometimes only moving each object/subject one at a time can result in a more eye catching result.
Keep it simple! There are so many examples of AMAZING stop-motion films out there, but don't let this discourage you, just start with something simple like the flower video above or the toys moving around (below).
Practice. Put one object where it might end up before you begin shooting to get your focus point and set the exposure. Make sure you get your expose correct first to save having to edit the photos too much later.
“This style of video is great for businesses to make something eye-catching for your feed. For products the easiest option would be a stop motion of your products moving around (maybe with supporting elements that are on brand), for service based business, an ‘action’ series of you working would be amazing to show your process. ”
Example of my set-up + tools needed
Tripod or something or lean phone camera against something like a book or water bottle.
Tripod mount for iphone (if you’re using tripod)
Phone
Earphones (used to take photos without moving camera)
Standard camera on iPhone + 'FrameLapse' for the editing element.
How I photographed the flower stop motion:
Steps I took to shoot stop motion on my phone:
Located good light (next a window), natural light is always best.
Setup plain background, could be just a tabletop or a piece of cardboard.
Setup tripod and phone camera mount so I could shoot overhead without moving the camera. If you’re shooting the bracket of the tripod out, remember to make sure the tripod can handle the weight without toppling over (use a weight on other end if necessary).
Connected the earphones to the phone and use the + volume to take each photo, this helps to not knock the camera whilst shooting.
Select you focus and set exposure. Press and hold your finger on the phone screen (when in camera mode) to make the phone camera set and select a focus point (now the focus won’t change for my whole shoot). This action also gives you the opportunity to lighten or darken how you want the final image to be (a little ‘sun symbol’ shows up, up for light, down for dark).
Have a few goes at getting the subject placement right, it takes practice to get a feel for what works in this format.
Have fun!
How I edited the stop motion:
(with paid version of ‘frame lapse’)
Steps I took to edit my stop motion:
If you’re photos need some extra ‘polishing’ before the film is made, edit them in a free app like ‘google snapseed', its one of my favs.
Download an editing software like ‘Frame Lapse’, it’s pretty simple, can be a bit clunky but if you want something that’s got heaps more options like adding text and music check out ‘Stop Motion’, but enviably with more option and tools comes more to understand and learn. Both work fine as a free version, but if you want to be able to take the watermark off you need to pay for this in Frame Lapse.
Change settings to remove watermark and export settings to ‘high res’
Import photos
Export final film to camera roll
Share on socials
A stop motion captured with my daughter, very low key, no tripod (just leaning against a glass).
