How to Make Stop Motion Lego Video

Have you ever seen those short Lego videos on Youtube? Ever wondered how they were made? It’s not too hard, and you don't even need any special equipment.

Basically, a video is a sequence of images that are played very quickly to make you think that the object in the images is moving. So, thinking along those lines, it’s not too hard to make your own video, provided you have a camera, and something to make a video of.

Equipment

As far as the camera goes, you don't even need a good one. In fact, I have a eight megapixel camera, and I typically lower the quality setting so that my pictures are smaller and store faster anyway. If you think about it, even HD video has a lower resolution than a typical mid-quality still picture. So don't sweat the camera.

As the name implies, these videos require a lot of “stopping.” Basically, you stop in between each frame to adjust your scene. Now, I think you'll realize that this is pretty hard to do if you are trying to make a video of something that can't stay still for long periods of time, like a live mouse. This is where the Legos come in. You can set a Lego minifigure in a position and leave him there for as long as it takes you to set the camera up, even if you’re a beginner. He won't move. I promise.

So now that you have your camera and Lego figure, you'll need to find a backdrop. It’s not a terribly big deal to have something unprofessional, like your basement wall, or kitchen table, or even your cat's litter box. People watching the film will be interested in what the minifigure is doing, not the background. However, if you want to make it more realistic, it's not too hard to find a picture or painting for a background, or spread a blanket down for a backdrop.

Taking Pictures

Now you can start taking pictures. It's important to remember that the camera has to stay still; otherwise the video will end up very jerky. A tripod is a great help here, but it’s not completely necessary if you can prop the camera up on something like a stack of books, or build a little Lego clamp for it, to hold it down.

As you take pictures, this is the sequence you should use:

1. Set up Lego guy(s) (or girl(s) for that matter)
2. Take a picture
3. Move the people in the picture, just slightly.
4. Repeat 2 and 3 until you have completed your scene.

Remember to keep the movements equal, and don't forget to move every figure, every time. If you forget one minifigure, it looks very bad in the final clip. Another thing to remember is the focus. Try to make sure the camera focuses the same way on every shot, or you could have a video that is constantly going in and out of focus.

Once you have your entire scene loaded on the camera, you need to upload them to your computer. From there, you can look the pictures over, and if they look good, move on to the next step.

Making the Final Video

Now that you have your pictures on your computer, you need to chain them together so that they play in a sequence, like a video. You can do this using a typical video editor, and set all the picture lengths anywhere from .05 seconds to .2 seconds. The smaller the number, the smoother the video will be.

The way I have found to be the easiest, however, is by using a program called Virtual Dub (www.virtualdub.org). You can download it here: http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?groupname=virtualdub&filename=VirtualDub-1.8.8.zip&use_mirror=voxel (note: this is a direct download link).

Once you have Virtual Dub, click File->Open Video File, then in the File Type box, select “Image Sequence.” To do this, you need to have all your pictures in one folder, numbered sequencially, like Lego1, Lego2, Lego3. Most cameras, however, do this automatically, so it's not a big deal. While still in the Open dialogue box, select the first in the series of pictures, and click open.

Virtual dub will load every picture numbered directly after the first one. If there is a gap, it will stop there, so be careful about deleting pictures. Once it has loaded all the pictures, you can preview them as a video. If you are happy, go to File->Export as AVI (or another file type, if you wish). If you think the sequence is going too fast, or too slow, go to Video->Frame Rate, and adjust the frame rate accordingly. Higher frame rates will give smoother video, but lower frame rates will make your clip longer. Once you have it set right, just export it as AVI, and you have a stop-motion Lego video!