20 Easy Stop Motion Animation Ideas

By Tata Rossi 4 days ago, Photography Tips

20 Easy Stop Motion Animation Ideas

The lack of good stop motion animation ideas can be a little confusing if you're just starting out. Even if you fully understand the concept of stop motion animation, coming up with good ideas can be a real challenge for beginners.

Stop motion animation is a special method of video creation that allows you to present inanimate objects as if they were alive. To create the effect of movement, you need to photograph the object in one position, then move it a little and take another photo. Repeat these steps many times (10,000-20,000), playback the sequence in a rapid progression using stop motion software, and the object seems to move across the frame.

20 Stop Motion Animation Ideas to Repeat

Stop Motion Animation may seem daunting, but I'm here to make things easier for you! I have compiled a list of easy stop motion ideas to inspire you for future projects.

1. Promotional Video from Bellroy

Bellroy are popular for creating highly engaging and creative commercials. In this video, they used a couple of interesting tricks. For example, you can see a reverse shooting of bottles, which return from crumpled state to their original one. You may also notice the fast replacement of flat fabric with a bulky backpack. Watch this video if you are looking for cool stop motion ideas.

2. Van Gogh's Dinner

This is the perfect embodiment of classic stop motion animation for fans of Van Gogh's paintings. The guys from Clicker created a room, which they gradually painted in the style of a Dutch artist. They turned things we are used to, such as bread, eggs or bacon, into painted ones without using 2D and 3D animation. This is one of the most challenging and spectacular works I've seen.

3. LEGO in Real Life

The video begins as a standard animation, but then it turns into one of the greatest LEGO stop motion ideas. Watching the video, you’ll see that during cooking, real objects turn into LEGO parts and this visually simple idea hides a very long and painstaking work.

4. Fresh Guacamole

'Fresh Guacamole' is the shortest film ever nominated for an Oscar. It was created using one of the best stop motion videos ideas. The authors play on associations using absolutely inedible things, but at the same time make the audience hungry. Also, colors play an important role here. They help create the most fantastic associations like a combat grenade with an avocado.

5. Honda “Paper”

This is a commercial that shows the evolution of Honda: from simple motorcycles to racing cars and robots. Compared to previous works, the authors do not want to pass off what is happening as reality. On the contrary, they specifically show you how animation is created using separate fragments of the picture.

6. Puppet Animation “Lost & Found”

This 7-minute video was nominated for an Oscar as the Best Animated Short Film. This one of the most famous stop motion animation movies was made according to the classic canons of puppet animation but in a modern style. You can see the cinematic work with lighting, staging, editing, and angles. The cartoon has received many awards around the world and it deserves it.

7. Cravendale Milk Advertisement

A short comedy video was created to advertise the British milk brand Cravendale. The idea of the video is simple and easy to implement. The authors used miniature figures of people and cows for animation. They moved them as they liked to create the desired image. Thanks to the correct angle and blur of the background photo, they created a three-dimensional picture.

8. Going Fishing

I love this kind of stop motion videos a lot. A real person interacts with an unusual world made of paper, plasticine or something else. In the video, the author doesn’t hide the details of the shooting but shows that everything is filmed in the studio, even lamps are included in the frame. But, at the same time, thanks to stop-motion animation, you see a human hand interacting with augmented reality.

9. Houston Filmmaker Explores Dimensions of Paper Animation

Brandon Ray is a filmmaker from Houston, who is famous for his stories created using hand-drawn animations. Besides his own short films, he worked on projects for world-known brands like Amazon, Disney Channel and Sesame Street. His works can be a fantastic source of good stop motion ideas. In the video, he talks about the creation of his works and what are the main difficulties during the process.

10. Stop Motion Animation with Creative Post-Processing

Usually, videos shot using stop motion animation method practically don’t require deep post-processing. You may need to edit something and improve colors and music. In this video, you can see white highlighting animation of some details (it is popular among bloggers lately), as well as adding layers in the frame with drops in the bottles. This stop motion animation idea looks fresh, creative, and interesting.

11. Human Skateboard

There are a bunch of similar videos on the network, but these guys were among the first, who filmed it back in 2007. Surprisingly, the video is still the best of its kind. This is a very easy stop motion video. All you have to do is just to capture frame by frame while moving the person in the role of a skateboard. I think the most difficult task is to find someone who will agree to be a skateboard for several hours.

12. Stop Motion Animation for Oren Lavie Video

Stop motion animation is also used in the music video by Israeli singer Oren Lavie for the clip “Her Morning Elegance”. It is shot from a high angle, giving the impression of being recorded from the ceiling. This is one of the most interesting stop motion animation examples. Recently, this kind of animation is gaining popularity again. Smartphones are easier to attach to the ceiling than huge cameras, so such ideas aren’t so difficult to implement.

13. How to Animate Food Like a PRO

This is a long video that contains dozens of great stop motion animation ideas, as well as behind-the-scenes moments where you can see the tricks animators use to create their works.

14. Guacamole Stop Motion Cooking

This is another video about making Guacamole, but now with real ingredients. Jiri's Stop Motion Cooking is a channel entirely dedicated to video recipes recording with a stop-motion animation technique. This is one of the best stop motion video ideas for beginners as you only need the simplest ingredients and a little time.

15. Turning Paper into a Donut

Margaret Scrinkl creates short (usually up to 10 seconds) stop motion animation videos. This video contains one of the coolest stop animation ideas for beginners because you don’t need to take more than 10 thousand frames (as for 5-6-minute videos). Besides, it doesn’t require any complicated work with lighting and editing. Place your camera over the table, come up with your idea, buy donuts (or an alternative) and record your own video!

16. Shooting from the Ceiling

I think you've seen more than a dozen of these videos because they are very easy to create. You just need to figure out how to attach your camera or smartphone to the ceiling. I think this one of the most interesting and creative ideas that a novice stop motion animator should try. Just use your imagination and get incredible results.

17. Making Popcorn

This is another interesting video from Margaret Scrinkl. It is also short and easy to create. You practically don't need to move anything in the frame, just add or remove elements gradually and you will create the effect you want. If you want to create a simple animation for advertising or training videos, then whiteboard animation software will come in handy.

18. Combining 2D and Stop-motion Animation

You can easily combine stop motion story ideas with other types of animation. In this video, you can see how the author presents the story using plasticine, marker drawings on the board, and improvised tools. On the net, you may have watched many similar videos. All the information is presented by drawings with a marker on a whiteboard.

However, if you want to create 2D animation without using a camera, then you need to choose one of the top 2D animation software.

19. Plasticine "Distortion" animation

I think everyone has watched plasticine cartoons. They are full of stop motion ideas for students. First of all, I mean the series of British cartoons Wallace and Gromit. The second season won an Oscar as the best cartoon of the year. Chicken Run became the highest-grossing puppet cartoon. The advantage of plasticine for stop motion animation is that you can make anything from it and then move an item.

20. Stop Motion Animation Fruit and Vegetables

Using fruit is a great way to practice stop motion for beginners because you do not need to think about the plot, angles and light in each frame. Also, the idea is simple to implement due to the fact that you can record several separate clips with different fruits and vegetables and then connect them in series.

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