Awesome Stop Motion

Phil is a skeleton. He quickly rose to fame on the big screen as a stop-motion superstar. Then, modern effects put him out of business. Michael Shanks’ (aka “timtimfed“) charming short film is a fun blend of live-action, animation, and VFX, and a loving tribute to the great Ray Harryhausen. Behind the scenes here.

Blackhand typically uses his X-Acto knife to build stuff out of cardboard. But in this clip, he used his sharp hobby blade to cut out silhouettes from 1400 pieces of paper, transforming footage of a dancer’s moves into a stop-motion animation. Original video here.

(PG-13: Language) This animated comedy from the producers of Robot Chicken follows a young man who wants to be a knight, only to find out that his castle is ruled by a corrupt and deranged king. Features the voices of Nicholas Hoult, Tara Strong, Luke Evans, Tony Hale, and more. All episodes on Hulu now (6.12.20).

Want to make your own stop-motion animation? Animator Edu Puertas shows off a few simple tricks using household items like tape, wire, aluminum foil, and pillow stuffing to embellish your creations with, and give them a more finished look.

Carving figures from wood takes time, patience, and skill. But S-Carving went one better, turning a sculpture of a horse into a stop-motion animation, inspired by the work of Eadweard Muybridge. To pull off the simultaneous refinement of the carving and the horse’s gallop must have taken tons of work and planning.

(Gore) Vincent Gallagher’s darkly comedic stop-motion short film tells the story of the two oldest men in the world, and the jealousy that erupts from the second-place winner, who will stop at nothing to claim the prize from his twin brother, born just seconds ahead of him.

LEGO builder Baron Julius von Brunk created this deranged stop-motion short which envisions an alternative universe version of The Simpsons, in which Bart, er Bort likes to sniff gasoline fumes and burn down lemon trees. Can Milhaus stop him before he destroys Sprungfeld?

Filmmaker and Star Wars fan Mason Drumm used stop-motion animation to recreate the pivotal lightsaber battle between Rey and Kylo Ren in The Rise of Skywalker. The 2 minute film includes some really great tricks, including confetti water splashes, and a rippling water machine. Behind the scenes story here.

Skier and filmmaker Philipp Klein was preparing to go on a trip to the mountains when shelter-in-place orders hit his country. But instead of complaining, he decided to do some freeride skiing right in his living room, with the help of some props and stop-motion to capture the snowy action.

Stop-motion animator Keshen presents an action-packed LEGO short. Watch as our protagonist minifig (who looks strikingly like The Stig) hacks his way into a mysterious building, and locates a high-value, artificially-intelligent bounty. The only trick, it wants desperately to annihilate him.

Tom Wrigglesworth and Matt Robinson of Wriggles and Robins created this fun stop-motion animation that tells the story of a boy’s action-packed journey to the moon, using pancakes as their medium. They cooked up about 600 pancakes to capture the action, though we’re not sure how many of those they ended up eating.

Dina A. Amin loves to disassemble everyday items, and neatly arrange their components. In this clip, she turned this process into a stop-motion animation, deconstructing a Walkman, a phone, a hairdryer, and a camera. She also likes to play a game where you guess how many parts are inside before it’s disassembled.

Stop-motion animator Alex Unger of Guldies shared this brief, but well-executed test video in which he demonstrates how he gets jewels out of rocks. In this case, the jewels are simply beads you could buy at any craft store. If only it was this easy to extract precious gems in real life.

Animator Bebop usually makes silly, but well-executed stop-motion films about food. But this clip is a bit more esoteric and abstract than their typical work. That doesn’t make this short film starring a disembodied hand any less compelling. We’re not sure what it all means, but it’s a cool work of visual art.

There’s something about the craft that goes into stop-motion animation that makes it so special top us. In this short clip by Terry Ibele of Terrymation, we meet a goofy wizard who seems to only know how to cast a single spell. The character is brought to life wonderfully through the voice of fellow animator Davey Swatpaz.

It took animator Guldies over six months and 2500 still images to complete this weird and wild stop-motion short film, which introduces us to a strange human/frog creature who begets all kinds of shapes and objects, all made out of clay.

Stop motion animator Bebop loves to fix fake foods out of inedible objects. After delighting us with a LEGO pizza, he’s back with a some fried chicken – made from clay and one of those squeaky rubber chickens. We’re guessing even if you fry the thing, it’s still a tough chew.

Fans of Nintendo’s classic 8-bit game will love this hand-drawn animation, which lovingly replicates World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. Kisaragi Hutae 6 combined paper cutouts and line drawings in his notebook to create this awesome little stop-motion short.

Visual artist Rogier van der Zwaag eschews digital effects for his motion graphics projects, instead painstakingly creating his images with practical effects, like the 4085 colorful rectangular blocks featured in this 2011 video for his collective Nobody Beats the Drum. Be sure to check out his tricky illusion videos on Instagram.

Stop-motion animator Bebop cooks up a delicious pizza with the help of some unconventional ingredients, including 2×2, 2×3, 2×4, and other studded plastic blocks. The 2-minute film is comprised of roughly 3,300 photos, and an unknown quantity of LEGO bricks.

Animator Kevin Parry spent an absurd amount of time baking in the kitchen to put together this mouth-watering stop-motion clip. It features a hypnotic sequence of colorful cakes gradually being cut away, slice-by-slice. Now we really are in the mood for dessert. Thanks, Kevin.

(Gore) Lee Hardcastle is back with another series of Rick and Morty claymation shorts, this time sending the duo on a some Halloween adventures, injecting them into Beetlejuice, Hellraiser, The Blair Witch Project, Videodrome, and a few other creepy and not so creepy movie classics.

This fun stop-motion film from Paul Greer’s Vanguard Pictures follows a battle between two mysterious helmeted opponents chasing each other on some wild vehicles, and promises plenty of crashes, flying machines, and action from start to finish.

Director León Fernández’s incredible stop-motion animated short film is what we long for in filmmaking – creativity on every level – from the character design to the unique story, about a tribe that struggles to survive in a barren world, and the unlikely odyssey of its weakest member.

Frenetic Arts’ documentary takes us inside the mind and the craft of stop-motion animation maestro Phil Tippett, whose work has been seen in movies like Star Wars: A New Hope, Robocop, Jurassic Park, and Starship Troopers, along with his epic passion project Mad God.

Animator Raphael Vangelis pays tribute to all the lost time spent watching spinning circles, hourglasses, beachballs, and progress bars on our computer screens, by replicating the idea with stop-motion animation and 3D printing. The behind the scenes video equally enthralling.