Step 1: Gather your pieces
- I have a lot of LEGO Minifigures, but not a ton of pieces, so I had to get kind of creative with my backgrounds. It’s very helpful to have a large LEGO ground plate to stick your pieces on so they don’t get accidentally bumped and knocked around. But they don’t need to be LEGOs: you can make great animations with clay, other toys, rocks, sticks, drawings… you are only limited by your imagination, really!
Step 2: Build your set
- A set is the world that you see behind and around the characters. Mine was small, simple, and I used my cardboard box of Legos as a backdrop. Also find a place to put your camera, whatever you are using. I built a small little LEGO base to hold up my phone and connected it to my set so that if I bumped either, they would stay together and look like they didn’t move.
- Also, if you are using a phone, these pictures will take up a lot of space, so make sure to delete them after you’ve finished your movie!
Step 3: Take Pictures, slowly moving the LEGO character each time
- This is what stop motion is all about! Move your figure just a little bit in each picture. The less you move the figure in each picture, the more slowly they will move. It’s okay to take just a few pictures of their movement and let your figures move really fast, just make sure there are more still moments so the viewer has something to focus on. It takes a lot of experimenting to figure out what looks best, so just get started and do it!
Step 4: Import pictures into a video-editing program
- I used iMovie, which isn’t really designed for Stop Motion, but it is free for Macs! When I was younger, I used a program called IKitMovie, which you do have to pay for, but I believe is still available. Maybe you and your parents can find a better free program online somewhere, but all you really need is a video-editing program that allows you to import pictures and make them play really fast.
- If you do use iMovie, import your pictures into your project’s event, then select them all and drag them down into the timeline on the bottom. You will then have to select all the images in the timeline and do two things:
- Then play through your movie: it should look like the LEGOs are moving on their own now! If you want to add sound, click on the microphone below the image and then the red dot to record yourself making whatever sounds you want.
Step 5: Export your video and share!
- Then export your video as a file, and you can play it or send it to whomever you want to show off your new movie to. Good job! You made a movie!
