Select a location for your film. A desk or table is ideal to start with. Ensure that your shadow is not falling on the area you are going to film. Ideally the area should be lit with electric, rather than natural light, to prevent any changes in light being visible as time passes.
Set up your tripod, weighing it down to prevent vibrations from moving the camera.
Start the sequence of events on your stage. Your first frame should be a view of the empty space your movie will take place in. Take 5-10 stills of the empty space to give yourself a "lead-in" when editing.
Place the objects in your space and take a still using your camera. Move your animation objects a tiny amount and take a second image. To create fluid movements, animators often use a ruler to measure the amount they move an object with each frame. Moving it a uniform amount each time will ensure smoother movements once edited. There will be 24-30 frames per second once the film is rendered, so pace the actions of your objects to match this.
Take additional photographs until you have captured all the images you want your film to include.
Transfer all the stills to your computer and check they have been sorted into the correct order by using a thumbnail preview. Launch Windows Movie Maker and select your images. Drag them into the time-line and save your project. Movie Maker will create a slide-show, displaying each image for around 5 seconds. Zoom into the time-line and drag the right edge of each image as close as possible to the left. Making the thumbnails narrow means they only display for a fraction of a second, this is what you want. Repeat this step with all the images.
Play the sequence back and watch your video, paying particular attention to the pace. If it is too fast, increase the duration of each image. If it is too slow, make the image durations shorter.
Click the "File" menu, then export your clip, either as a movie file, or an animated .gif. Stop motion sequences work well as animated .gif files, because gifs create motion onscreen using a sequence of still images, just like stop motion animation. Converting a movie file to .gif can sacrifice fluidity in the onscreen movement, but stop-motion animation was created using the same sequential technique.