How to Add a Background in Stop Motion Animation

At-home stop motion animators use Adobe Premiere to bring stop motion films to life. One of the most important parts of a story is the setting. In stop motion animation you can use a green screen while you shoot, and add your setting or background later. You can use Adobe Premiere to replace a green screen with an image suitable for your animation.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Pick the right background image. You can use any digital picture as a background image. So choose one that goes well with your animation and the story you are trying to tell. Generally, you'll want to pick an image with crisp resolution. Photos that you right-click and save off of the Internet will not have a high enough resolution for your purposes.

2. Place your stop animation in the viewer in Adobe Premiere, and the background image on the video tracks below.

3. Open up the "Video Effect" menu in Adobe Premiere, and choose the "Chroma Key." Drag and drop the "Chroma Key" onto the icon of the animation.

4. Use the "Eyedropper Tool," and click on the green screen in your animation.

5. Go back to the "Chroma Key" drop down menu, and raise the similarity as high as you can without having your character disappear.

Tips & Warnings

• You can only use the "Chroma Key" if you shot your stop animation against a green screen. Other backgrounds or color screens will not work. The "Chroma Key" eliminates that color from the footage. Other colors, such as blues and reds, are more common in people and stop motion puppets. These color screens used with the "Chroma Key" will dilute the screen and the stop motion figure.