LEGO® Stop Motion Animation

Let's learn a fun, new way to tell stories through stop motion.

What you need:

• Camera

• Tripod

• Animation program—we recommend Stop Motion Studio

• LEGO® bricks

What you do:

1. Plan out a basic movie plot. Imagine the setting and the characters. Then, think about what you want your characters to accomplish during the movie.

2. Build your background out of LEGO® bricks. The background is where the action will take place. This is called the scene.

   1. Tip: You may want to build multiple scenes.

3. Build your characters out of LEGO® bricks.

4. Place your camera on a tripod or find a way to keep your camera as still as possible.

5. Take your characters and put them in their starting position for the story and take a picture.

6. Move your characters to their next position and take a picture.

   1. Tip: Each movement for your character must be done incrementally. On average, you should aim for 15 pictures per 1 second of the movie.

7. Continue moving your characters and taking pictures until you have finished your movie.

8. Upload your pictures to Stop Motion Studios and watch your final film.

Questions to ask:

1. What would happen if you took more pictures? What about less pictures?

2. Are there sounds you could add to your film?

What's the science:

We see animation because of something called beta movement. Beta movement is a form of optical illusion where our mind imagines a collection of still images as moving due to their rapid succession to one another. 

When our eyes see anything more than ten images per second, our brain blends the images together as one continuous motion. Because our brain blends the images together, it can make more sense of the information it is taking in.