stop-motion

As a parent, there's nothing quite so satisfying as watching your kids express their creativity. Doesn't matter if it's with a set of blocks, a box of crayons, or an app that turns long sequences of still photos into superhero-themed movies -- it's just thrilling.

On Saturday, I gave my 9-year-old son a five-minute tutorial on using Lego Super Hero Movie Maker, a new app that lets Lego fans create nifty stop-motion animations using their own minifigs (i.e. little Lego people).

By Sunday, he'd already created several hilarious movies, the best of which involved a giant praying mantis catching and devouring several minifigs (hey, who says the good guys always get to win?). And he was just getting started -- Super Hero Movie Maker was an instant hit.… Read more

Released over the last decade, the Lego Star Wars ultimate collector series contains many elaborate sets, including "the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs." This "hunk of junk," officially known as set #10179, sold for $500 when it launched in 2007.

Over the course of three years, Francisco Prieto created a 3D stop-motion video of the Lego-ized Falcon being born. … Read more

YouSpin360 lets you take multiple shots while moving around your subject to create an image you can view from all sides. The interface on YouSpin360 is not very intuitive initially, but once you get the basics, you'll be able to make cool-looking 360-degree shots you can show as videos--even on the Web.

You start by choosing the type of shot you want to create using the options tab that slides out from the right. Whether you want to see yourself from all sides, show a car from various perspectives so you can sell it on the Web, or make … Read more

It takes a lot of patience to make a stop-motion flick. But animator Eric Power makes it look easy with this amazing Super Mario short made entirely out of construction paper.

And to think, the first few episodes of "South Park" were made like this.

The YouTuber has posted several stop-motion paper videos, including a Star Wars homage and a spot-on Mortal Kombat fighting sequence.

He's also launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his first full-length feature made entirely out of cut-paper animation.… Read more

It's probably not a good sign that the first thing people ask me when they notice I'm holding an iPhone 4 is always something about how I deal with the reception issues. I've said here before that I have yet to experience dropped calls or any other issues related to "Antennagate" (yeesh, will we--as a society--ever get over the whole "Whatevergate" meme?), but that's probably largely just luck; maybe I'm fortunate that where I go in my daily life is covered pretty well by AT&T. I suspect I could be a rare exception.

The interesting thing to me is that the reception issues and "Death Grip" have been all over the news here in the U.S., but reports trickling in from other countries are quite the opposite. An Australian publication, The Daily Telegraph, gave a very positive review to Apple's iPhone 4 today saying finally about the reception issues, "Is the antenna an issue? No it's not. Have I dropped calls? No, I have not." Another story out of Norway (via AppleInsider) had similar results, with the writer concluding that the issues are more about weak U.S. mobile networks than they are about the iPhone 4 itself.

So my question is, even though the "Death Grip" might reduce your signal by a bar or two, if Apple had announced a deal with Verizon (or some other carrier) at launch, would we even be talking about "Antennagate?" I think I know what Steve Jobs would say if he thought nobody else was listening.

This week's iPhone AppsGate includes a fun tool to make stop-motion movies and a water-racing game sequel that is a huge improvement over the original.… Read more

This video, titled "Invent," is Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth's entry for HP's D&AD Students Awards contest, which awards students who present "an idea which promotes HP workstations' ability to bring to life anything the creative mind can conceive."

Tom and Matt responded with a unique design using stop-motion animation, catchy synthesized music, eight HP Deskjet D1560 inkjet printers, and a whole lotta paper to create this "aesthetic symphony."

Detractors on the Vimeo video page are shaking their fingers at the large volume of trees that were sacrificed in the … Read more