Stop Motion Animation

What is stop motion animation?
Stop motion is animation technique that physically manipulates an object that appears to move on its own. The objects is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of the movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence.
How do you create a stop motion animation?
The first thing you will need is an idea. Come up with something simple for your first try. For example you may want to make an inanimate object appear as if it were alive; for example, a sock inching its way across the floor. Keep in mind that you can expect to shoot around 10 photos for every second of the film.
You will need a digital camera. As you will not be printing these photos, you can set your camera to the lowest size image setting. This will let you fit more images on your memory card at a time. Depending on how long you want your animation to be, you may need to copy you photos to a computer and erase them from you memory card if you run out of memory.
Finally, you will need video editing software like Apple's iMovie or QuickTime Pro, in order to turn your images into an animated movie.

1. Using a tripod and only moving your objects will make it appear as though your object is moving through your frame. Keeping the object in the same general area in each frame by moving the camera along with it will make it appear as though you are traveling with the object. After you've taken your first photo, move the an object (the sock for example) slightly in the direction you want it to travel and take another photo. Move it again by the same distance, and take one more. Continue this until the sock reaches where you want it to stop. You can manipulate your object in creative ways to add visual interest to your film.
2. Download your photos. Once you have captured your images you will need to get them onto your computer. Import your images files and give them their own album. 
3. Find you photos in your video editing software.
4. In order for your animated movie to play properly, you must tell your video software (iMovie for example) how long you want each photo to appear before showing the next one. It's kind of like creating a slideshow, except instead of giving each image a few seconds, you give it only a fraction of a second. The timing you choose will affect the overall tempo and length of your film. 

What materials could you use to create a stop motion 

animation?

Anything! You can make models, use a sock, a piece of paper. Any inanimate object you want to make come to life can be used to create a stop motion animation.

Artists, designers and animators that use stop motion in their 

works.

Henry Selick.

Selick directed movies such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. The Nightmare Before Christmas had 24 frames to a second, meaning they had to pose characters 24 times for each second of the completed film. That consisted of roughly 110,000 frames. One minute of the movie required a entire week of filming and therefore the movie took more than three years to complete. There are as many as 60 individual characters, with three of four duplicates each. Each puppet had an armature inside it, enabling flexible movement. More than 400 distinctly different Jack Skellington heads were used and Sally had a mask for every expression change. They couldn't give her different heads because of her long red hair, which is why they created the masks. They had to set up trap doors so that animators could pop up and do the animation from beneath. 

Nick Park

Nick Park created the British clay animation comedy series, Wallace and Gromit. Park made his first stop motion film at the age of 13. 

Tim Burton

Tim Burton is an American film director, producer, artist, writer and animator. He is known for his dark, gothic and quirky fantasy films such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bride, which was created using stop motion animation.