By Graham K. Rogers

The availability of video apps for iOS makes the devices even more attractive for many users. Although I prefer photography, I have recently been looking at a number of apps that create special types of video output and this weekend tried Stop Motion Studio - an app for unusual animation sequences.

Introduction

Somewhere between the two are some special types of output. Of late I have been trying a number of these: Echograph, an iPad app that creates animated stills from video; and Slo Pro 60 which had an update at the end of June to allow clips of 1000 fps. I have also been using the rather good iTimeLapse for several months which records shots at intervals and combines them into movie output.

Stop Motion: the Idea

Stop motion has been used to great effect originally in short films where inanimate objects are made to come to life. It has a fairly long history and early examples I saw used plasticine or clay. There seemed to be an increase in the number of films made using this technique in the 1960s and later. It was ideal for animations used in children's programs, but major films have also used the technique, with one of my favourites being Wallace & Gromit. The list on the Wikipedia entry for movies using stop motion is far larger than I expected.

Examining the movies and clips used in such movies as Wallace and Gromit, or Terminator and Star Wars, it is clear that to make such movie clips needs expensive professional equipment.

Or an iPhone.

Stop Motion: the App

Although there is an example of a stop motion clip included which I looked at after making my first one, the ease of use did not need me to examine that other than as a point of reference. My initial attempt used about 15 frames, while the example had 100: a clear difference and a quick lesson learned.

That first result, encouraging as it was as a way to use the app, showed me that a little planning is useful: stop motion will not work in all situations. There are specific types of animation that can make the best use of it. That is a problem of creativity, not of the app.

I set the second clip up a little more carefully (as simple as it was) and used a small tripod. From the main panel, where previous clips are shown, a large + to the left starts a new project. There is a clear indication what to do next as an arrow points at the camera icon and displays "Tap here to add some pictures."

A camera display screen is opened with several controls. To the right are a slider for brightness and a + icon that displays a grid over the screen: useful for accurate placement. At the bottom of the screen are 6 controls. At the far left is an X icon that returns to the screen to start new projects and process those already finished. A slider, when tapped enables a timer and a clock icon to its right brings up a slider to adjust the time between shots, from 5 - 90 seconds. The camera button is in the centre of the bottom display strip and alongside is a button that reveals some camera controls: sound (on/off), front or rear camera, and autofocus (on/off). At the right is a small panel which displays frame numbers.

When sufficient shots have been taken, returning to the project panel allows the user to access several other controls. To the left are icons to return to the start panel, a microphone icon for adding a commentary, and a music icon which accessed the music library on the iPhone.

At the bottom of the panel is a display of all the clips. When I made a video with coffee beans, I found that one shot included my fingers. To remove that, I pressed and held the bad clip and a menu appeared with Capture, Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete.

To the right are three icons: the camera which returns to the panel for adding more shots; an icon with 3 dots that opens a control panel for the clip playback; and an icon that plays the clip. When played the any soundtrack is included and the word "Audio" is shown. Pressing this displays the audio clip and its length.

Finishing Touches

In the center of that bottom panel is an Export arrow with several options: Camera Roll, via email, YouTube, Facebook and iTunes. An icon that looks like a frame links to YouTube and user uploads from the app are shown. A trash icon is on the far right.

When I tried email I was warned that the size might be too large for some email accounts. I went ahead anyway and the 7 second video (originally 80 photographs) arrived as a file of 11.2 MB. It was a smaller file when I transferred a copy from the camera album on the iPhone despite selecting the largest (HD 1080p) option. However when I used the feature to export via iTunes, instead of a video, I transferred a folder containing all the individual photographs. I tried this a couple of times but had the same result on each occasion.

Comments

The installation is almost identical on the iPad although as the app is optimised for the larger device the display is that much better. However, the size of the iPad itself works against making a good stop motion video unless the iPad can be fixed in some way, or the shots are set up carefully.

With the iPhone, the nature of the smaller device makes it easier to hold it still, although with the second test video I used a pocket tripod I had picked up for under 300 baht at Mahboonkrong and the Glif tripod mount I bought recently for just this type of use. I did make a small video on the iPad of the Mac lid closing then opening again, but the movement of the iPad itself gave a dissatisfying jerkiness to the output. A firm support would make all the difference.

I am delighted with Stop Motion Studio, which was ridiculously cheap at $0.99. There are a number of ways in which this could be used to create valuable output from an iPhone or iPad, such as instructional videos or output for the budding movie-maker. Once a child gets the hang of this, I would expect some quiet hours for parents as well as some excellent learning points for the child.

For ease of use, low cost, but high output value, Stop Motion Studio is certainly recommended.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.