How to make a stop motion film using MonkeyJam, Wax, and/or Windows Movie Maker.

Would you like me to tell you how to to make a stop motion movie with music?  You will need a program called MonkeyJam to put all of the frames together, and a program called Wax if you want sound or music included in your video. You could probably just use Windows Movie Maker too. But first let me tell you what settings to use on your camera.

All of your images must eventually be 640×480 pixels in dimensions. This is the standard aspect ratio for videos and the video must be exported at this size in order for it to work. My Nikon D50 has a setting where I can take pictures at this size, but if your camera does not have that, then use fotosizer to resize all of your images to that size.  It’s best to shoot small JPEGs on your camera when doing stop motion anyways because this saves up space on your memory card, allowing you to take more photos.

So, what is the best way to make a stop motion or time lapse video? Have everything set to MANUAL MODE, and also switch to MANUAL FOCUSING. This makes all the frames you shoot to have the same brightness and depth of field settings. I used a tripod and a remote to make my video, but you can make these without them. If you want to be in the frame and have no remote, set your camera on a flat surface and use the self-timer on the camera, or have someone else take the pictures for you. It isn’t as good as having a tripod+remote, but it’s a lot better than having to take frames hand held.

Remember to shoot all of your frames in horizontal orientation, as you can see in my video, when I eat the sandwich, I was shooting that in vertical orientation and it came out sideways.

Anyways, once you have all of your frames shot, download them to your computer, resize them to 640×480 if necessary, and then drag and drop them into MonkeyJam. You can choose how many frames per second you wish to have too.  Once you have everything done, export the uncompressed video.

If you want sound, drag and drop your video into Wax or Windows Movie Maker, and then drag and drop a sound file into the audio track, and then save a compressed version. This will make it so you can upload it to youtube.

Have fun!

About PhotoExtremist

Trick Photography
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