11 Steps on How to Make Stop Motion Videos
Learn How to Make Stop Motion Videos with the Life Lapse App
We've all seen cute stop motion videos on the 'gram but who actually ever thinks about making their own? Well, you should! Stop motion videos are eye-catching and with Life Lapse, our free stop motion app for Android and iOS, they're hella easy to make! No need to be overwhelmed with using fancy DSLR camera or spending hours trying to figure out how to use expensive editing software. Start with downloading our app and then follow the steps below to make a stop motion video.
Download our free stop motion app, life lapse
How to make a stop motion video
Step 1: Firstly, I recommend drawing out what you want the animation to look like, especially if there's going to be multiple sequences and high tech things happening like a grapefruit la Croix spinning to a lime la Croix, lol. This helps you stay on track & organized as you are creating.
Step 2: Create a new project in Life Lapse. click the "+" on the top left hand side of the screen.
Step 3: When the camera first opens up, you'll see an option for "Video Project" or "Photo Project" at the bottom. Make sure you have "Photos Project" switched on. If you have 1 second video clips, it won't make for a very entertaining stop motion - Though I'm totally open to somebody proving me wrong on this.
Step 4: Turn the grid on, which is on the top right hand side of the camera. This will help you make sure you objects are centred. On that note, figure out where you're doing to be posting this video. Is it for an Instagram story advertisement? Or is it for a Facebook post? Keep this in mind when you're shooting that it will get cropped after - if you decide to crop to square that is.
Step 5: Position your camera and do not move it. It can be mounted onto a tripod or you can lean it against something, like these DIY tripod hacks. For the purposes of the video above, you'll need a tripod since you're shooting directly above the object. Amazon sells the tripod to phone mount for a couple of bucks and you can also find our stop motion equipment recos here.
Step 6: Make sure your lighting is good. It's best if you have controlled lighting. What's controlled lighting? A lamp. What's no controlled? The sun. No, you are not mother nature, so unless you want a bunch of different exposures and flickering throughout your video, I'd highly recommend moving away from windows & the sun.
Step 7: Time to bring the objects to Life! Position your objects & take the first photo.
Step 8: Turn off leave on the ghosted image. Depending on what kind of stop motion you're creating you may or may not need the ghosted guideline on. For the stop motion above, I used it in the scene where I swapped out the grapefruit La Croix with the lime La Croix. It helped me make sure I put the lime one exactly where the grapefruit one was.
Step 9: After you've taken your first photo, move your objects, take another photo, rinse & repeat.
Step 10: Play your video and watch it come to life! From here, you can customize the size, add music, filters & change the speed. You'll notice when you play it first it the motion is very delayed, that's because the auto setting for picture projects is super slow. Click on the fast forward icon and move the slider to about 3/4 of the to the right or experiment with the speed that suits your project best.
Step 11: Save your video by clicking the arrow on the very far right.
I'd love to see your Life Lapse videos, tag us @lifelapse_app or use hashtag #LifeLapse so myself and the Life Lapse community can draw inspiration from you & give you some love on social media!
- Sarah
PS - In cased you missed it, I did an article on the difference between Instagram Story stop motion videos and Life Lapse Stop Motion videos which you can watch here:
