Stop motion is a filmmaking technique where individual photos are pieced together to create an animation or movement when the pictures are played back at a high speed. While stop motion is most traditionally known for movie making and claymation like Wallace and Gromit, you can join the likes of companies like Starbucks, Target and Sephora who regularly integrate stop motion videos into their marketing channels. Create highly visual, scroll-stopping product videos for your brand.  

Over 1 million brands are using Life Lapse to create compelling stop motion videos for social media marketing. From animating product shots to showcasing a range of products, Life Lapse is easy to use to create a variety of highly visual video assets with your phone. Visit our Academy within the app to see examples of stop motion videos and exactly how to create them using Life Lapse.

Get started with this quick video to learn how to create stop motion like a pro in under 5 minutes! 

Step 1: Click on the “+” button on the bottom center to start creating your first stop motion. This opens up your camera to start capturing pictures or video. Our app is defaulted for you to capture photos within the app but you can choose mini video clips at the top center.

Step 2: Choose an object you want to animate. In our example above, we are going to move this plant into the screen from the left and exit the screen on the right. Start off with capturing your first photo with your empty frame. Then, move the plant slightly to the right and take your next photo. The Ghost feature will appear to show you the image you just captured as a guideline to see where you want to move your object next. Move the object to the right again and capture your next image. Continue this until your object is completely out the screen. 

Step 3: Push the “Play” button on the top right corner to play your video in the Timeline Editor.

Step 4: Adjust the speed in the Speed setting. Moving the speed towards the turtle will slow down the video or move the speed to the rabbit to speed it up. 

This is the basics of stop motion: clips or images stitched together to create an animation. Did you notice that your video is shaky or it looks like there’s a flickering light? Let’s move on to the steps on how to stabilize and light your stop motion video so you can create like a pro. 

Step 1: Click on the “+” button on the bottom center to create a new project. 

Step 2: If you have a tripod, use it! If you don’t, you can place your phone against an object or inside the mug to stabilize it. It’s important that your phone is still while you are filming so the background is the same between shots. The only thing moving in your frame should be the object you are animating. 

Step 3: Now that your phone is stable, tap the “EXP” to lock the exposure and the “AWB” to lock the white balance. This will prevent the camera from auto-exposing each image so you don’t get the flicker when you play it back quickly. 

Step 4: Use controlled lighting like a household lamp or a photography light for stop motion. Natural light typically does not work well with stop motion because you cannot control it which can cause a flicker when you play your video if the light changes while you are filming.

Step 5: Repeat the same steps from the basics of stop motion above. 

Step 6: Once complete, increase the speed to see your animation! 

Visit our Academy in the app for more in-depth tutorials on creating stop motion videos with your phone.

Photo clips can be captured using our stop motion camera or imported into the app. The best option for stop motion is to use our camera that has specific features built-in to make creating stop motion videos a seamless process. Features like the ghosted image overlay, exposure/white balance lock and interval timer are unique and necessary settings that will dramatically improve the final result of your video. You can adjust the speed of the clip to play it faster or slower. Our speed adjuster is only available for photos. 

Video clips can range from 1/4 second, 1/2 second, 1 second, 2 second or 3 second clip. When you select the length of time, each clip in that project will be that length of time. For example, if you choose the 2-second video clip option, each time you add a clip to the project, it will be 2-seconds. When you generate your video, Life Lapse will stitch together all the clips for you to create your video. Video resolution is captured in 1080x1920, or in 4K with Life Lapse Pro.

To add your own photos, click into your project and tap the + button on the right side of the timeline editor to import photos.

Unfortunately our app only allows you to import photo clips. 

You can remove our watermark with our Life Lapse Pro subscription. We offer a monthly and yearly subscription which you can try on a 7-day free trial.

You can rearrange right in your timeline editor within your project by dragging the image or clicking on the clip and choosing “Move Frame”. You can also edit in the gallery view of your project (For Android users, please use this option as the timeline editor is not available on Android yet). You can select multiple clips at once, however, right now, you cannot drag multiple clips at once. You have to select multiple shots and use the “move frame” option. You can only select what you see in the current view, so If you select a few frames and then drag the timeline to the left or right to select more clips, your first group of clips selected will be auto-matically unselected. This is version 1.0 of our timeline editor and we plan on making improvements to it so it’s even easier to use. Please be sure to follow us on Instagram at @LifeLapse_App where we post updates of new features that go live inside the app. 

Gallery view can be accessed by clicking on the icon with 4 blocks on it above where the video plays. 

Head into the gallery view of your project and click into the image you want to edit. Click the edit image option <insert the image of the icon here> on the bottom left and you can align the image here. You can align your clips to the previous image in the project or the first frame in the project.

In your list of projects, hold on your project and swipe left to get the delete button. Click “Delete” and a notification will pop up asking you to confirm you would like to delete. Once you click delete, you will not be able to undo this.

Unfortunately we do not have a duplicate option right now. This is on our list of improvements to make inside the app. A workaround to this would be to save all the photos from your project to your phone, start a new project and then import them in.

Select individual clip in your Timeline. A menu will pop up, click “Download to Phone”. To save multiple clips, click on the first clip you want to select, from the menu click “select”, then select your other clips. Please note you can only select what is currently visible in the timeline editor. If you try to drag the timeline to select more clips, it will unselect the first group of clips (we plan to improve this soon!). Once you have your clips selected, click “Download to Phone from Menu”. An easier way to save multiple clips at once is from Gallery view. Click on the icon with 4 boxes in it on the top right hand side above where the video is. You will now see all your clips in gallery view. On the top left hand side, click “Select”. Go through and check off all the clips you want to save. You can scroll and select in gallery view. Once you have the clips selected that you want to save, click on the arrow on the bottom right hand side. 

You can delete a  by clicking on it in your Timeline. Once you select the image you want to delete, a box will appear with options to move, freeze, duplicate, download and delete this image. Tap “Delete”. Please note you can only select what is currently visible in the timeline editor. If you try to drag the timeline to select more clips, it will unselect the first group of clips (we plan to improve this soon!). Once you have your clips selected, click “Delete”. An easier way to delete multiple clips at once is from Gallery view. Click on the icon with 4 boxes in it on the top right hand side above where the video is. You will now see all your clips in gallery view. On the top left hand side, click “Select”. Go through and check off all the clips you want to Delete. You can scroll and select in gallery view. Once you have the clips selected that you want to delete, click the garbage can icon on the top right hand side. 

Tap on the Ghost feature in our Stop Motion Camera to adjust the opacity of the previous clip. The Ghost feature will create an overlay of your previous clip so you can determine how you want to line up your object compared to the previous photo. The Ghost feature will not work if you do not have any clips in your project.

When capturing your clip, scroll to the right in-camera to find the Ghost icon. You will see a bar appear to adjust the opacity of the image of your previous shot. Move the button all the way to the left if you would like it to disappear.

We recommend taking a clip at least once a week for the best results. See our blog post here for instructions on how to create a pregnancy time lapse video with Life Lapse. 

Yes. Our app will set the exposure automatically when you are capturing your images and videos or you can tap on the area in your photo or video to customize the exposure. We recommend locking the exposure to prevent the issue of flickering in your completed video project.

Our in-app camera will auto expose the frame or you can tap on an area in the frame you want to expose or brighten/darken. Tap the Exposure Lock to lock that exposure for all of your shots. You want to lock the exposure so it is consistent in all of your frames as you are shooting and prevent flickering in your video when the clips are stitched together. 

The white balance controls the coolness or warmness of your video. Our in-app camera will auto white balance the frame or you can choose the part of the image you want to get a white balance reading by tapping the area in the frame. You should lock the white balance so it is consistent in all of your frames as you are shooting and prevent flickering in the video when the clips are stitched together. If you don’t, the camera will adjust it’s exposure automatically in each shot and as you are moving objects in and out of the frame it cause the white balance to go warmer or cooler. Non consistent white balance = Flicker.

Our in-app camera will auto focus the frame or you can choose the part of the image you want to focus on by tapping on the area in the frame you want to focus on. Tap the Focus feature to lock it.

Yes, you can find the Self Timer feature in our stop motion camera. You can choose 1 second up to 60 seconds and it will provide an on-screen countdown before it captures the image.

The Interval Timer will take photos automatically on an interval. For example, it will take 1 photo every 15 seconds. Both the self timer & interval timer need to be enabled for the interval to work, otherwise it will just be in self timer mode, taking only 1 photo 15 seconds fro now. You can customize the time it takes the photos between 1 and 60 seconds. 

The interval timer is a great solution for those that don’t have a bluetooth remote or you don’t want to have to go back to the phone each time to take a photo. It’s also great if you don’t have a tripod and are using one of our tripod hacks because it means you don’t have to touch the screen and risk moving the phone. Make sure you have the volume on so that you can hear each time a photo is taken. 

Ensure you have your auto-lock setting for your mobile phone turned off as the camera will stop shooting if your phone locks. 

Open the iPhone “Settings” app (not inside Life Lapse), go to Display and Brightness and click “Never”. 

The Interval Timer must be used in conjunction with the Self Timer. Enable both to activate.

Yes, you can with Life Lapse Pro. We recommend your phone isn’t on silent mode so you can hear/confirm the photo is taken with the remote. You will hear the shutter noise of when the photo is taken if your phone is not on silent and your volume is turned up.

Tap on the Custom Grid feature and pinch your fingers in and out on the screen to customize your grid.

The custom grid allows you to make a custom sized box around an object so you easily align your clips between shots. For example, let’s say you’re making a hyperlapse of somebody. You can make the custom grid around the person so that the top of their head and their feet are outlined. As you’re animating (especially outside), it might be hard to line up using just the ghosted image feature. The custom grid will ensure the alignment and distance from the subject of the hyperlapse is consistent between clips.

Tap on the flash button located next to the shutter on the bottom left corner. You can turn off the flash, enable auto flash or turn on the flash. 

From the camera, push the play button on the top right hand corner. This will open up the timeline editor where you can edit your clips, add filters, music & more. You can also access the editor from selecting the project on the projects tab.

Open the project and click on the “+” icon on the right hand side of the timeline editor. From here, you can either open the camera or import a photo from your camera roll.

You can adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation and warmth of the video from the editor. Click on the Adjust icon insert adjust icon, select the setting you want to enhance and adjust the slider accordingly. Adjusting the brightness, contrast, saturation and warmth of your video is a Pro feature and is not on Android yet. 

Yes, you can find the filters in the Timeline Editor and apply them to your project.

In the Timeline Editor select the frame(s) you want duplicate. From the menu click “Duplicate”. You can choose to have the duplicated frame(s) to the next frame in the project or to the end of the project. 

To create a freeze/pause/hold effect on one clip in your project, from the timeline editor, click on the clip you want to freeze. Choose how long you would like to freeze it for. You can choose from 1, 2 and 3 seconds. Life Lapse will then duplicate that image enough times so that when the video is played at your selected speed settings, it will last for the freeze time you selected. To shorten the time of how long you want the frozen clip to last, delete frame(s). To make the freeze last even longer, you can either freeze for 1, 2 or 3 seconds again, or individually duplicate that frame as many times as you wish.

Right now, when you have the boomerang feature enabled, the clips will not move. If you’re still editing your project (deleting, duplicating, moving or freezing clips), we recommend holding off on enabling the boomerang feature until after you’re done editing everything else. This will make editing easier since when you pause the video, you will be able to see the clip in the timeline of where the video paused.

In the Timeline Editor, toggle on the Boomerang and your project will play forwards and then backwards. 

Yes, you can adjust this in your Timeline editor. Tap on the Size icon to choose from the following options: Original (if you captured your image within the app, this will be 9:16), 9:16, 10:16, 4:5, 1:1, 5:4, 16:10 or 16:19.

In your Timeline Editor, tap on the “Speed” button and you will see a bar with a turtle and a rabbit. Move the button towards the turtle to slow down the speed or move towards the rabbit to speed it up.

Life Lapse will automatically loop your video for you if your completed project is under 5 seconds. If it is above 5 seconds and you are planning to use it on Instagram or as an animated GIF, it will loop it for you within Instagram. 

If you would like to remove the option of the auto loop in Life Lapse, go into the Settings tab and toggle off “Loop short Life Lapses” under Life Lapse Video Preferences.

Yes, you can reverse it in the Timeline Editor. It will take your project and play it in reverse. 

You can do this in the Timeline Editor in the Tilt feature. You can change the angle, pinch to zoom in and also drag the video up, down left and right to reposition. 

Yes, you can rotate it in the Timeline Editor under Rotate. If you do not see this option, please scroll over to the right. 

You can resize your project in the Timeline Editor and choose from 9:16, 10:16, 4:5, 1:1, 5:4, 16:10 or 16:9 options to optimize your stop motion video to any of your social media platforms. If you are unhappy with how the editor crops your video, go to the Tilt feature and you drag the video up, down, left & right to adjust the crop.

This is a Life Lapse Pro feature. In your Timeline editor, tap on the folder icon at the top (next to the music note) to access your phone music Library purchased through iTunes. If you are planning to use your video on social media, you may run into copyright issues if you do not own the music. We also have over 100 royalty free music and sound effects for you to use.

Our music and sound effects will only play from the beginning of the video and you can only add one sound effect to your project. However, you can click on the sound name and adjust the volume, fade in and out, loop your video until the end of the song and trim where the sound starts and ends. We are working on improving this in the future so that you can have multiple tracks and select where in the video project you want the sound to start.

Yes, you have the option to save your video to your phone as a GIF or in video format. Export as a GIF to easily embed or have your video play automatically when sharing through emails, texts or websites. 

This is a Life Lapse Pro feature.

Once you are complete with your project, tap on the Save button located at the top right to export your project.  - INSERT SAVE ICON - 

Saving in GIF is a Life Lapse Pro feature. GIF allows you to easily embed your video and it can automatically play when sharing through emails, texts or websites. Saving in video format will save your project as an mp4 file to share.

See our list of recommended lighting and tripod equipment here.

https://www.lifelapseapp.com/shop

Our Life Lapse Academy is a free feature with tutorials to help you make stop motion videos like a pro using your smartphone and our app. You can access it here on our website or find it right in the app.

Urgh, we hear you on this! Unfortunately, Instagram does tend to butcher the quality of videos and this is out of our control. We have noticed that if we upload a video that is stored "in the Cloud'' instead of stored directly on your phone, it uploads to Instagram more pixely. To avoid this, we open the video in your camera roll/gallery to make sure it's fully rendered on the phone, then upload to Instagram right away. Bringing the video into other apps to make additional edits will also decrease the quality of the video.

iMessage compresses the video quality when you send it via text and it will look super pixelated when for the person receiving it. To avoid this, we’d recommend sending the video via email.

Please review your permission access for Life Lapse to access your camera roll and camera. If your access is turned off, you will not be able to import your photos.  

To review or enable your permission on iPhone:

Open the Settings on your phone, scroll down to Life Lapse and under photos, ensure “read and write” is selected.

Our speed adjuster is only available for photo projects. If your project includes mini video clips, it will not allow you to adjust the speed.

Regrettably, we have had to make a challenging decision to remove our Android app from the Google Play Store. The reason behind this decision lies in the complexities of developing and maintaining our app on the Android platform. Unlike iOS, where there is a unified code base for iPhone devices, Android presents a unique challenge due to the vast diversity of Android devices available in the market (thousands!), each with its own set of features and specifications.

To provide a seamless and high-quality user experience, we had to maintain two entirely separate code bases for iOS and Android. Over time, managing the Android app has become increasingly difficult, as it requires extensive resources to address the numerous device-specific issues and compatibility challenges that arise. Unfortunately, the revenue generated from our Android app does not justify the significant investment required to keep it on par with our iOS app.As a result, we have decided to remove our Android app from the Google Play Store.

We understand that this may be disappointing news for our existing Android app users, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Unfortunately, we do not have a way to notify customers who already have the app installed on their devices about this update.

In the meantime, our iOS app remains available for iPhone users, and we continue to appreciate your support and loyalty. If you have any questions or require further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Thank you for your understanding, and we look forward to serving you better in the future.

If you are contacting us regarding a purchase made on Google Play, we kindly ask that you reply to this email with your Order Number. This unique identifier typically starts with the letters "GPA" and can be found in the email receipt you received when you made your purchase. Providing us with this Order Number will help us better assist you and get your refund issued.

TLDR: Unfortunately we longer have the funds to make updates to our Android app, if you are experiencing a bug, means it will not be fixed. If you upgraded to Pro, please respond to this email with your order number (It starts with "GPA" and is in the receipt Google emailed to you after you purchased Life Lapse).

Please contact us via the Settings tab in Life Lapse and clicking “Send Feedback”. This will open up your email along with a log report to help us troubleshoot your issue. Please include the issue you are having within this email to support@lifelapseapp.com. 

Within Life Lapse, click on Settings > Store > Life Lapse Pro. From here, you can choose to upgrade your subscription to a monthly or yearly subscription.

We’re sad to see you go! Follow the steps below to manage your subscription of Life Lapse. Important: Please note that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. You must cancel through iTunes or Google Play Store. Life Lapse does not have access to canceling your subscription for you. 

We’re always improving our app and would appreciate your feedback on why you are cancelling or if you have ideas on how we can make this app more valuable for you. Please share your feedback with us at support@lifelapseapp.com.

Within Life Lapse, click on Settings and under Store, tap Manage subscription. This will take you to all your subscriptions associated with the Apple ID on your phone and you can cancel your Life Lapse subscription or switch to an alternative subscription plan.

Alternatively, you can also access this directly through your phone Settings. Open Settings, then tap iTunes & App Store. Tap on your Apple ID at the top. Tap View Apple ID and sign in if prompted. Tap Subscriptions. Find and tap the subscription you would like to cancel. If you don’t see your subscription, make sure you are signed in with the correct Apple ID that has Life Lapse downloaded to it. Choose Cancel Subscription (iOS 10) or turn off Automatic Renewal.

Apple and Google handle all payments made in the App Store and Google Play Store, please contact Apple or Google directly to request a refund. 

For Apple: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204084

We love featuring videos created by Life Lapse on our social media! Please tag us @lifelapse_app or use hashtag #LifeLapse for your chance to be featured.

Can’t find what you’re looking for? We’re here to help. Please email us at support@lifelapseapp.com.