The Midwest US is about to get clobbered today with a mix of rain, freezing rain, snow, and lots of wind. It’s the kind of day to hunker down and figure out how to entertain your young ones when you don’t plan on going outside. If you’ve got a few things lying around, I might have an idea for you.
My youngest and I spent about half an hour the other night just goofing off with her camera. She was trying to make a stop-motion video with her Polly Pockets before I got home from work. Once dinner was done, there was nothing capturing either of our attentions on TV so she wanted to keep working on the video.
Here’s what we used:
- Polly Pockets
- Point-and-shoot camera
- Camera tripod
- Halogen work-light
- Imagination
- Windows Movie Maker on the kids PC
The end result?
This was our first foray into the world of stop-motion. I can see a couple things to change from the video.
- Tighten up the tripod
- Use Lego minifigs or characters that can stand on their own
- Get some music or voice-over going for the story
Great minds think alike as fellow GeekDad Nathan used his iPhone and clay to do a similar thing a couple weeks ago.
Both Kevin Kelly and Chris Anderson have reviewed stop-motion software before for GeekDad, and now with the stop-motion bug having bitten we may have to look at these.
For those that have done this before, I’m open to ideas for my youngest and myself to use in our next video because, yes, there will be another.
