Face it – most of us are not the best videographers. While we might occasionally utilize the video capabilities on our digital cameras, the vast majority of us do not know the first thing about cinematics or what goes into making a video. Still, anyone can make a pretty cool video using stop motion. By taking a succession of images to imitate active motion, stop motion makes any amateur camera operator look like a creative soul. While freeware does exist for this specific purpose it is iffy at best and typically does not work well. For most applications, plain old Windows Movie Maker will do the trick better than most other “free” programs.
Before you dive into this how-to with a bunch of old pictures, take a moment to go out and get a new set of images. The changes between each image should be minimal. You might just want to do this by taking a quick walk around the block – if so, take a fresh image at least every few steps if not on every single step.
Windows Movie Maker still comes bundled with many systems, so before you go out and download anything take a quick peek and make sure you do not already have it. If you find it under start, go ahead and fire it up. If you do not, follow this link to Microsoft’s website. There you will be able to download a copy of Windows Live Movie Maker – the process for creating stop motion videos from images should be pretty close to the same as this traditional method.
If you have not done so already, take a moment and move your images from your digital camera and onto your computer. Then, click on Import Media in the top left corner of Media Maker. This will open up a new window that will allow you to find the images you have taken from your digital camera. Once you have located them all, simply highlight them all and click Import. They should now all be found on the main interface of the program.
Next, go to Edit and locate the Duration parameter in the menu. Here you need to drop down the picture duration considerably from the default seven seconds per image, changing it to something around .175 to .250 seconds. This will allow your images to play in rapid succession. Make sure you mark all of your pictures before you change the speed setting. Click OK.
The latest version of Windows Live Movie Maker adds all imported photos directly to the animation. You can rearrange the photos and images if you like if they appear out of order.
Once you have everything in order, take a moment to review your video by clicking the large play button. The video should play in the large video box. If anything seems out of order, change the order on the right and replay the video. If everything seems correct, click the Save Movie button under the Home tab and pat yourself on the back. You have just created a stop motion video!
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“take a moment and move your images from your digital camera and onto your phone” …Seriously?
We can only assume you meant computer when you wrote phone.