In the world of software for Mac’s there are a number of applications that have the power to satisfy professional users whilst at the same time being simple enough for primary school students to use easily.

iStopMotion from Boinx.com is one such application. It is a very simple to use tool for creating stop motion movies or time lapse sequences and can use either an Apple iSight, a firewire connected video camera or still images captured externally as input.

To start creating your first animation is really simplicity itself. Setup your camera to point at the scene ( childrens action figures make ideal source material to play with ) and fire up the application. Once you have decided on the size and quality of the captured movie you are presented with a preview window which shows the video source in realtime.
You are now ready to begin capturing frames… Click the red record button and the first frame is recorded, and at the same time the frame is frozen in a “ghost” mode on the preview screen. This is to allow you to setup the next frame whilst still being able to see the previous one. Move your figure a small amount and check the preview screen before clicking on the Record button to capture the next frame.

Preview Window after taking first frame and moving onto second frame showing “ghost” effect.

Continue this process until you have captured a few dozen frames. At any time you can click on the Play button to generate your movie and see the results.

An alternative to this type of stop motion animation is time lapse animation. This is actually much easier to do ( if that is possible ). Setup your camera on the required scene and launch iStopMotion. Again select the size and quality of the captured movie, however this time you just need to setup the time interval between frames in the Options Drawer and click on Start. The program will automatically begin recording a frame each interval until you stop it. For an example of the sorts of results that are possible with this program see some of the links below.

Watch Time Lapse - Superb time lapse movies of dramatic cloud formations, landscapes and City scenes.
iStopMotion Examples - Some examples of other peoples work posted on the Boinx web site

I have a few examples of movies that my youngest son and I have produced that I will upload to YouTube and link here when I get a minute. In the mean time I would love to see what you have done with this program, if you have anything or know any good links to examples of animations created with iStopMotion please leave a comment for me !