THE BEST Stop Motion

Paulo Raposo shows us how it doesn’t take a ton of time or money to make an entertaining short film – just a bit of creativity. He made this stop-motion animation in just a couple of days, using paper, pen, tape, and a little work to put it together in After Effects.

Wes Anderson returns to the world of stop-motion animation in his latest film, about a future in which dog overpopulation leads to an evil overlord quarantining our best friends on an island filled with junk and garbage. Stars pretty much everyone in the universe.

Artist Páraic Mc Gloughlin’s abstract short film is a dizzying look at objects, people, and places which share common properties. It took Páraic over a year to capture and assemble the huge number of images as he traveled across Ireland and Poland.

Director Fred China and his team are currently raising funds for a documentary about the creation of Tim Burton’s 1988 classic Beetlejuice, which features amazing, never before seen archive footage of production of the film’s clever visuals. (Thanks John!)

A group of minifigs go from master builders to master destroyers in animator Reto Hochstrasser’s amazing stop-motion short, in which LEGO anarchists demolish his laptop using fire and explosions. Forget Batman and Ninjago, we want The LEGO Destruction Movie.

An all too short profile and behind-the-scenes video about LAIKA. The animation studio behind Coraline, ParaNorman, Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings push their craft by placing equal value on traditional techniques and modern technology.

BrickBros Productions takes a page out of animator PES’ book with this fun stop-motion short, in which real-world food items are replaced with their LEGO counterparts. We’ll have our bricks over easy with bacon.

(PG-13: Language/Gore) Animator Sam Barnett follows up his 2013 stop-motion short with another incredible episode about an evil corporation that enslaves and controls its workers with creepy biomechanical parasites. Help fund episode 3 over on Kickstarter.

(PG-13: Language) Chris Hopewell’s music video for this track off of Run The Jewels’ album RTJ3 features a stop-motion Killer Mike and El-P on a not so amusing amusement park ride through some of society’s worst examples of racism, corruption, and materialism.

Counter656 used their talents to create a stop-motion music video for Van Ness Wu, who comes to life in action figure form, taking down an army of papparazi action figures hellbent on capturing his image. The music isn’t exactly our cup of tea but the animation is top notch.

Brett Foxwell’s enthralling music video for Bedtimes‘ ambient track is a stop-motion short created from numerous photos of cross-sections of wood and tree limbs, as they are gradually sanded down. Individual photo prints from the film can be purchased on his website.

The LEGO Movie looks like it was made with LEGO, but it was actually almost entirely computer animated. Animation studio Animal Logic looked back at films made by LEGO enthusiasts and came away with one lesson: respect the toy’s physical attributes.

Cole Paviour, James Medcraft, UNIT9, and Machine Shop teamed up to devise a fountain which “prints” 3D liquid images. Combined with camera gear from ARRI Rental and Mark Roberts Motion Control they turned the images into a stop-motion animation. BTS here.

Jonathan Chong and Clem Stamation’s music video for Husky’s catchy alt-pop track Ghost has the look of an animated cross-stitch. We’re guessing that it was done with computers, because we can’t imagine that anyone’s grandma could have sewn this much.

There are few jigsaw puzzles that are more difficult than the 33,600 piece set called Wildlife. But to make it even trickier, the folks behind this video clip put the puzzle together in the most awesome way possible – played out as a series of classic video games.

Pasquale D’Amico’s short clip centers around a phenakistoscope – a Victorian-era device which could display moving images by spinning a disk. He scanned in a number of images from inventor Joseph Plateau’s moving picture machine to create this hypnotic animation.

Flamboyant Paradise created this wonderful animated promo spot for communications company NET Brazil. They used a combination of puppetry and CG to create a modern day retelling of The Ugly Duckling. The track is an acoustic cover of Ain’t Got No (I Got Life).

The protagonist in Nick Black’s darkly comic claymation short sets out to answer the divisive question: “Which came first – the chicken or the egg?” Unfortunately, his proposed experiment to solve the perplexing riddle has unintended consequences.

Netflix keeps the original content rolling with this goofy-looking stop-motion animated series about a dog who loves to race semi trucks, and the quirky array of characters in his life. From the animators behind Robot Chicken, and the creators of Care Bears. Yup. Drops 3/10/17.

Given how good The LEGO Movie was, it may be hard for all of its spin-offs to live up to the original. Still, we’re hopeful that this big-screen take on the popular ninja-themed minifigs will be as action-packed and funny as its first trailer looks. It’s certainly got an awesome voice cast.

Director Paul Greer and Vanguard Pictures present another action-packed, CGI-free, stop-motion animated short created with toy cars as the characters. Oddly enough, their nemesis is… a glove. Watch it alone, or as part of the Nitro Warriors Anthology.

An award-winning stop-motion animated film about a boy with an unusual name, and his journey to fit in at a foster home after the loss of his mother. The French/Swiss film been redubbed in English with voices by Will Forte, Nick Offerman, Ellen Page and Amy Sedaris.

If you haven’t seen Kubo and the Two Strings yet, you must. It’s simply one of the greatest achievements in animation ever. Then watch this 16-minute behind the scenes reel, which shows off some of the stop-motion, miniatures, VFX, and voiceover work that went into the film.

An up-close look at a rig built for the stop-motion film Two Balloons. The animators used an intricate network of strings and push rods to move dozens of shiny plastic layers to create the undulating waves of an ocean. The trailer for the film looks amazing.

Dropbear Digital’s incredible music video for Dan Sultan’s track Magnetic was created through a mix of 3D printing, stop-motion, and projection mapping techniques to bring the singer’s digitized avatar to life. The behind-the-scenes photo album is equally fascinating.

(PG-13) Contemplating suicide, a man with cannibalistic tendencies remembers the defining moments of his life. Director Nina Gantz’ award-winning stop-motion short is creepy yet tender, and filled with visual and emotional juxtapositions.