On
many older film-based movie cameras, there is a function that will let
you shoot one frame at a time, rather than at full running speed. Each
time you click the camera trigger, you expose a single frame of film. When
you project all those frames at running speed, they combine to create motion,
just like any footage that had been shot 'normally' at running speed. That's
how cartoons are made. On video cameras, this is not possible but on video
hard drives the very same thing can be achieve with the appropriate software
and capture board. When your video camera is hooked up to your computer,
any PC or Mac system with stop motion capture capability can capture a
single frame of video with each click of the mouse button. When those frames
are played back at full running speed, the end result is motion, just like
with the older movie camera. The technique is the same, only you are recording
each frame to the hard drive of your computer instead of to a frame of
movie film.
