Stunning Stop-Motion Animation: Ten Examples

By Scott, January 27th, 2010 in Design Articles, Inspiration, Photography, Showcase | 3 Super Comments

Lately if you have been browsing the video sharing web sites and communities, you’ve seen a rise in stop-motion animated clips, from commercials to music videos and school projects. Stop-motion is simply frame-by-frame animation using still photos, with objects and/or actors moved incrementally between shots to create the illusion of movement. It’s an old medium, pre-dating the advent of modern motion picture and video cameras.  And it can be pretty labor-intensive! But it also can produce some spectacular effects, as in the following set of some favorite (and mostly fairly recent) stop-motion shorts. Anything here to provide new ideas or inspiration to designers? I think plenty, but you be the judge.

1. KaBoom! by PES

This is the latest work by the amazing stop-motion film artist known as PES. If you haven’t come across PES before, enjoy!

2. Deadline: Post-It Stop-Motion

You don’t need a lot of crazy props to make great stop-motion animation, as Bang-yao Liu demonstrates in his remarkable work with colored post-it notes.

3. The PEN Story

Simple in concept, this gorgeous short required shooting over 60,000 still photos.

4. TXT ISLAND

A beautiful short stop-motion film by Chris Gavin using nothing but plastic sign board letters.

5. MUTO: Graphiti Stop Motion by BLU

Don’t miss this one! Fantastic stop-motion animation executed on public walls of Buenos Aires and Baden by the artist BLU.

6. Guerreiros Malandrops® “O Filme”

7. Ivan Ives – All My Life (Official Video)

A brilliantly frenetic montage of stop-motion techniques.

8. Sorry I’m Late

This one is masterful! Animation is shot by a ceiling-mounted camera, with the “landscape” moving underneath. See how it was made.

9. Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

A classic.

10. Food Fight

A history of US military engagements from World War Two on, as depicted by iconic national food items.