iLounge

The National Film Board of Canada has released NFB PixStop, a new app designed for shooting and scoring stop-motion animation films on the iPad 2. NFB PixStop allows users to capture up to 10,000 images to create stop-motion films up to 13 minutes in length and add background music titles and descriptions. Finished videos can be exported to the iOS camera roll for sharing via e-mail or uploading to YouTube. Inspired by the stop-motion animation workshops offered at the Toronto Mediatheque and Montreal CineRobotheque, NFB PixStop is designed to be educational as well as creative, offering three short tutorials by NFB experts covering principles of animation, creating a flipbook and storyboarding; integrated help also explains all of the application’s functions and a sample movie is included to get users started. NFB PixStop is available from the Canadian App Store as a free download, or from the U.S. and other International App Stores for around $3.