Stop Motion

Stop motion is a type of animation that uses real things. Artists take a picture, move the object a tiny bit, and take another picture. When you watch all the pictures fast, the objects seem to move by themselves. It takes a lot of patience!

What You Can Use

Clay figures are often used because they are easy to bend. This is called claymation. People also use dolls, toys, or even paper cutouts. Some artists even use food like candy or vegetables.

A short stop motion animation made from twenty-one photos.
A short stop motion animation made from twenty-one photos. (Matthew850 at English Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons)

Famous Stop Motion Films

Wallace and Gromit is a famous claymation from England. Coraline is a spooky stop motion movie about a girl. The Nightmare Before Christmas uses tiny puppets. These movies take years to make.

Fun Facts

  • One second of stop motion can take a whole day to make.
  • The movie Coraline used over 28 million hair pieces for the puppets.
  • Stop motion was used way before computer animation.

Did You Know?

Some of the earliest stop motion films from the 1900s used dinosaurs and monsters to amaze people in theaters.