Checking out iStopmotion on the Mac

(A quick sample done in minutes with iStopmotion2)

I took my classroom Mac home with me this summer and am trying out some new things with it. I do love the Mac now (Bonnie will be proud) and I wondered about making stopmotion movies on it. I know you can import digital photos into iPhoto or iMovie, and do it that way by laying in images. But I wondered about programs for the Mac, so I gave iStopmotion2 by Boinx a try.

I am pretty impressed with the possibilities of this software. It’s easy to use, creates files that pretty much seamlessly integrate with iMovie, where you can add voice and music and titles, etc. If you have an upgraded version of iStopmotion, you can add audio and titles and more right in the program itself. (I would not recommend this for the classroom because of the cost of the licensing. But if you have deep pockets, well, it would be perfect for kids to use because it is just so darn easy to use).

I did splurge on a home license because I figure my own kids will give it a shot. They liked using the foregrounds and backgrounds, but I guess those features don’t export with the video. Or at least, I can’t figure it out. Or it may be that my license does not allow it.

What I need to now figure out is how to use something other than the tiny video camera in my Mac to capture frames because the location of that camera (on the top of the laptop) limits what we can do. And my five year old says he wants to make a movie! So …

Peace (in the frames),
Kevin

2 Comments
  1. So glad you shared this! Each year our district has a video contest about recycling, being green, etc. Yesterday I thought the kids might have fun putting together a stop motion for that, then realized with a giant “Duh!” that we could play with it a lot more than just for the contest. 🙂 We have iMovie on our school laptops, so I was planning to use that — but I didn’t know about the other software. Can’t wait to check it out, thanks!

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