It's official - were going to have a contest! Our first contest will be to make a video about Stop Motion Magic. Actually the idea was Arnymates, you can check out his profile here:

http://www.stopmotionmagic.com/arnymate

For the contest, the video will be need to explain "why you need to join our site Stop Motion Magic". Since we haven't fixed the video uploads yet on the site, you will need to put your film on YouTube. We will the post the winner on the home page of the site!

You can use Lego's, Stikfas, clay puppets, foam puppets, cut-out puppets, pixelation, sand....anything. As long as it is done in stop motion.

There's also a prize. The winner will get a free printed copy of my book Secrets of Clay Animation Revealed. It's professionally bound, 168 pages long and I will autograph it for the winner. It's also shipped free to anywhere in the world. You can see how it looks and what it's about here:

http://www.createspace.com/3339922

The contest begins today, and will end on May 22nd. Is 2 weeks long enough for everyone? If anyone will need more time please tell me this week so I can extend it. But after this week if nobody asks for more time, then the date will stick.

Im still a bit green on my animating but im gonna give it a try. Hope to see others as well. I like to see different visions of one idea.This should be a good time guys!

Hey Optik, yeah I hope it will be fun for you guys. The animation doesn't need to be perfect. I'm going to judge it mostly on how entertaining it is and how well the video can persuade people to join and share their work with everyone else.

Please fix the upload problem soon, Marc. Thanks for an otherwise-cool site!  

Hi Techno, I'm working on it. It would be nice if I can get it done by the time the contest ends.

Hey Marc, cool idea! I might have a go. Any ideas of the length the animation will have to be?

Great idea!  I have allredy started myne cant wate to see what every else is doing!

Hey guys, well the length of the film isn't too important. Some things you might want to include are that you can post your pictures, talk in the forums, make blogs, live chat...really anything that is related to the site. And make it fun to watch - that's the main thing.

Yikes Marc! The contest does sound great. and the site needs it. but 2 weeks is really not enough time. Various members of this site that I have talked to will be getting out of school in about that time.

Hi Mike, I didn't realize that. Ok I'll add on an extra week - the new end date will be May 29th.