Stop Motion Studio (Animation)

Shooting Your Animation

Camera Settings

Shooting Your Animation

Exit Shooting Mode, Rename and Make a Copy

Edit and Time your Animation

Review Your Animation

Export Your Animation

Backup Your Project

Shooting Your Animation

Using Stop Motion Studio and an Android or iPhone

Normally we use a program called DragonFrame, which is the industry standard for shooting stop-motion animation.
If you enroll in Stop Motion Animation and other advanced animation classes you will use Dragonframe.
Feel free to check out the program or try out the free trial.
To keep costs reasonable for this remote semester we will use Stop Motion Studio.

Purchase and install Stop Motion Studio on your chosen device.
Launch the app and get a feel for it.
When you are in camera mode, you should be able to trigger the shutter remotely using the volume button on a wired or bluetooth headphone. Test this out before you get started.
The following step-by-step guide covers shooting a pegbar registered, hand-drawn animation using this phone stand ($26 ) as your tripod
I used an inexpensive crafting light.

In the Stop Motion Studio project page with an arrow pointing to the plus sign icon above the words New Movie

Create a new movie by pressing the +

Screenshots are from Android OS; iOS is similar but let us know if you get stuck!

To access project settings, tap the gear icon on lower left.

Animation project view on the speedometer setting highlighted and the numeric slider set to 24.

24 frames per second

Frame icon highlighted and below that HDTV (16:9) selected

16:9 Aspect Ratio

4k icon, highlighted, and HD selected from the options below

HD Quality

Play icon, highlighted and the second icon below, two arrows looping, selected.

This button will loop playback

Tap Done when finished.

Camera Settings

Camera view, with an arrow pointing to the camera icon in the upper right of the screen.

Press the camera icon to see camera view and access camera settings.

Choose Camera. Then, press M.

Second icon selected, the capital letter M, and below that AL with a blue rectangle around it.

AL locks focus and exposure for all your shots

Shooting Your Animation

Table with a pegbar taped to it and the field guide drawing on the table. A camera stand with the phone has been clamped to one side, a craft light to the other.

Using a sturdy table, set up a camera stand and light.
Place your pegbar (or other registration system) and 16x9 reference field in front of the camera.
Shown here: a flipbook drawn on 8x5 index cards, using 2 holes of a traditional animation pegbar

Phone screen from above in camera view, shooting the field guide.

Use stand position and zoom so the field nearly fills the frame.

Phone screen from above in camera view, shooting the field guide. An arrow points to the settings icon, which is the second below the red record button on the right side of the screen.

Access the zoom control from camera settings in the lower right.

Camera settings screen with the right icon selected, which looks like a magnifying glass with a plus sign. Below is a slider where you can adjust the camera zoom.

Zoom until the rectangle fills the frame, then click Done

While you are zooming, the zoom UI will be transparent so you can see the framing.

Note also that I zoomed a little wider here so you can see the edges of the frame, for instructional purposes.

Camera settings screen with the second from right icon selected, which looks like a sun. Below is a slider where you can adjust the exposure compensation, which in this shot is set to +9.

Adjust exposure compensation so the paper is bright white (but not blown out)

Peg bar taped to the table with masking tape.

Field guide placed on the taped peg bar.

Carefully tape the peg bar in place, recheck framing then lock your camera.
Important: The locked camera and taped peg bar are your registration system that will hold all drawings in the same relative position.
Make sure you do not disturb this setup while you are shooting your drawings!

Volume button from the headphones taped with masking tape to a surface. An arrow points from bullet point 2 to the arrangement.

Press the volume button on your remote to capture shots.
Tip: Tape your remote to a separate table so you don’t accidentally pull the wire and move the camera.
Replace your field guide with your first image and trigger the shutter. If you plan to shoot on 2s, take a second shot, on 3s take a third. (Do this for each drawing.)
Carefully replace each image and shoot it (1x, 2x or 3x)
If you make a mistake, just reshoot that frame, you’ll be able to edit the sequence later.
Tip: close the curtains, shoot in a windowless room or at night. Keep the lighting as consistent as possible!

Exit Shooting Mode, Rename and Make a Copy

Arrow pointing to the arrow icon in upper right of screen, two icons above the red record button.

Press this arrow to return to project mode

Arrow pointing to the arrow icon in upper left of screen.

Press this arrow to return to project list

In the project selection page with an arrow pointing to the text name beneath the newly created project; in this instance it reads My First Movie 2

Long-press on the project name to rename it.

Arrow pointing to the text in the pop-up window with the project name.

Click on the text to bring up a keyboard and rename. Please see your lecturer’s assignment delivery naming conventions, correct naming may be part of your grade.

On the project selection page with an arrow pointing to the project thumbnail image.

Long-press on the project thumbnail to select the project.

Arrow pointing to the copy icon, which is an inverted plus sign on the blue band at the top of the screen, the rightmost icon in the set of 3 in the upper left corner.

Click on the layered + icon to make a copy of the project. That way, if you make a change you cannot undo, you’ll have a copy of the original to return to!

Edit and Time your Animation

In the project window with an arrow pointing to the play icon, the lowermost icon along the right side of the screen.

Click on the project thumbnail to open it. Use the playback button to review your animation.

Arrow pointing to one of the frame icons along the bottom of the screen, with the frame editing options menu visible above the selected frame.

Click any frame to bring up the frame editing options.

These are pretty intuitive, however if you’d like further documentation, this link from the Stop Motion Pro website details each of these functions.

You can use paste to modify exposure rates (e.g. copy a frame, then paste it to increase its exposure by 1) or to ping-pong cycles by copying a range of images then using Reverse.

Review Your Animation

On the project menu with an arrow pointing to the play button in the upper right of screen in the blue bar. One of the project thumbnails shows a blue check mark, indicating that project is selected.

Return to the project list window and long click again to select the project. Then use the play icon to playback a final review of your animation.

Export Your Animation

Options menu beneath the share icon in the blue bar. The first option reads Export Movie. One of the project thumbnails shows a blue check mark, indicating that project is selected.

With your project selected, click on the share icon and choose Export Movie.

Share options that appear after Export Movie is selected, including from left to right Save as, Youtube, Bluetooth, Save to Drive, Add to Maps, Messages, Upload to Photos, Gmail, and additional icons including Slack and Dropbox.

From here, you can upload to YouTube or save to Drive, and more.

Backup Your Project

Options menu beneath the share icon in the blue bar. The last option reads Project. One of the project thumbnails shows a blue check mark, indicating that project is selected.

With your project selected, click on the share icon and choose Project. This will save a backup copy to the cloud drive of your choice. You can re-import this copy into Stop Motion Studio.

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