Stop Motion Playmobil

When we started this site one of our earliest ideas was to include stop motion animation as part of our videos. What better way to illustrate the imaginative possibilities of these toys given; when children play, the figures are rarely still either in the child's hand or their imagination. To the uninitiated, stop motion simply involves taking a series of photographs of an object, making small movements of it between shots. Once this series of images are played consecutively the illusion that the object (or objects) are moving independently is created. Simple in principle, though, as I've been discovering, far less simple in practise!

While this technique has been done with incredible sophistication by the greats of the medium (Ray Harryhausen being the obvious example), even at its most basic it offers a raggedy charm that doesn't feel too impossible to achieve for the beginner. In fact, as something of a frustrated film maker I was surprised and delighted to realise how many of the techniques and principles involved in filming full scale, live action scenes are identical to those involving the small scale of stop motion. Getting some primers on lighting set-ups and framing will really help the look of your video. I would suggest LED lights to anyone interested in doing their own stop motion, as the light will be consistent between shots, leading to a more fluid looking sequence.

A lot of the stop motion culture, especially on Youtube, seems concentrated around Lego as the toy of choice, so the thought of creating scenes with Playmobil felt like an interesting new take. It soon became clear though, when I started filming and piecing together my first Playmobil stop motion recently, why Lego has proven such a popular object for the craft – Lego is designed to plug in and fix to its environment. Indeed, keeping all the elements dead still in a shot when you're making small adjustments to one or multiple pieces, is one of the biggest challenges the beginner will face. A quick, effective solution? A glue gun – it doesn't damage the Playmobil, and is quick and easy to apply and remove. Works a treat!

Despite these challenges, I do think Playmobil can offer a few things that other small world toys can't. For example, the relative realism of Playmobil sets and figures can look very dramatic on film compared to the stylised blockiness of Lego (though incredible results have been achieved with the latter). Also, the larger scale of the figures and sets wont require you to employ special lenses to get decent close up images, especially handy if you only have a trusty smart phone as your camera (such as me!) Anyway, I'm just a beginner, but I'll keep you up to date with what I learn along the way. Also, feel free to share any tips about stop motion and Playmobil in the comments!

It's been great fun so far, and I can't wait to release the Halloween video on our site...when its' eventually done that is. There's a short, and very rough, sample of a scene at the bottom of this article. Talking of which, I have lots more taking of pictures and incremental moving of figures to be getting on with. Now, where did I put that glue gun?