The Frugal Networker

iStopMotion for iPad
Boinx Software Ltd.
$9.99 iTunes Store
App for making stop motion and time lapse videos
Related product: iStopMotion Remote Camera (Free)

I was pretty excited when asked to review iStopMotion for iPad, since I’ve been a fan of stop motion video and claymation since I was a kid. I remember watching Gumby, Davey and Goliath, and all of those holiday claymation shows and loving them. I have always wanted to make my own stopmotion movies but never knew how. Plus, it takes a LOT of patience to make them, even with a cool app like iStopMotion for iPad.

And iStopMotion for iPad is cool. I like it. The really cool part about it is that you can install iStopMotion Remote Camera for your iPhone and use it as your camera and save your photos to your iPad without having to do anything more than clicking the shutter button.

I like the onion skinning feature too. This allows you to see where you’ve been on the previous shot so that you can move your objects a small amount so that the movie doesn’t look jumpy.

Over on your iPad, iStopMotion assembles your snaps into a stop motion video for you. One word of caution here, though. Don’t assume, like I did, that iStopMotion will allow you to manipulate your movie a great deal–it doesn’t. Now, if you’re a Mac owner and you also have iStopMotion installed, you might be able to do more but all you can do with the iStopMotion for iPad app is delete the current frame, delete all frames, duplicate the current frame, or reverse the order of all the frames.

Hopefully in the future, Boinx will give us more editing features with the app. One I would love to see is the ability to export the video into individual frames. I need this feature because, like most filmmakers, I do not necessarily create in linear order. I need the ability to move frames.

I created a short video but didn’t realize the limitations so it won’t be posted here. Sorry. It was basically two hours wasted because I wasn’t aware. I guess I didn’t read the fine print.

That said, I think that if you create your movies in linear fashion, meaning you create your video from the beginning and work through to the end, then you’re fine. Unfortunately, I was going to work my magic in “Post.”

The app does exactly what it should otherwise. You can create all kinds of really cool stop motion movies, claymation animations, text-based animations and more. Don’t let my ignorance of the app cloud your decision to use it or not. I think it’s a very cool app and having the ability to shoot with the far more agile iPhone is the absolute coolest feature.

For my studio setup, I used an 18″x24″ whiteboard, an iPhone 4, an iPad 4, a tripod and phone holder, and a dimmable, fluorescent ring light.

You can share and upload your movies via the app to Dropbox, YouTube, or save to the Camera Roll.

I think to get a full appreciation out of this app and what you can do with it, you’d have to own a Mac equipped with iStopMotion or maybe iMovie, although I’m not 100 percent sure that the movies are editable in iMovie. I don’t own one, unfortunately.

So, in a very rare move, I’m offering two different review results for this app.

9/10 for Mac owners who also own iStopMotion.

6/10 for everyone else.