This is the method I used to create both of my comedy shorts, “Spring Break: Earth” (25 minutes long) and “Sugar” (12 minutes long) for my little studio called Silly Side Productions.

Spring Break: Earth cost me $600, and the most expensive part of the process for me is hiring my voice actors. (I couldn’t afford to pay them much, but at least I paid them!) Everything else was pretty darn cheap.

In a nutshell, here’s my complete animation method.

• First, I hired/cast my voice actors and ask them to send in their lines in MP3 format. (Sometimes it can take a while to get all the actors to send their lines in, depending on their work schedules, so in the meantime, you can start on the other steps.)
  • To save money, I will sometimes use family members and/or AI voices. Once, I used the sound of a porcupine for one of my characters. (Yes, a porcupine. lol)
  • The AI voice studios I use are Eleven labs and Replica Studios, but there are many other companies out there, too.
• Next, I print out a PAPER COPY of my screenplay, punch some holes in it, and put it in a three-ring notebook. (For my first project, I started out with a 25-page screenplay that I wrote in 2012, but if you have a really busy schedule, I would highly recommend starting out with something much shorter, like a 5 or a 10 page screenplay.)
  • This way, I can make notes on my screenplay as I go through the production. Because sometimes I change the dialogue, etc….
• Next, I number the scenes in my screenplay, AND I number each line of dialogue, too. (It’s just a system I came up with myself to organize my lines of dialogue.)
• Next, I create some worksheets – (scenes, scene backgrounds, characters and special props.)
• As the voice actors send in their dialogue lines, I create a separate folder for each actor’s lines, and organize their dialogue lines by scene and dialogue line number. (Trust me, do this in the beginning – it will make the process much easier.)
• Then, I go to Canva (Yes…I know….I know…I use Canva.. lol. But right now, it’s all I can afford.) and pay for a month or two of “Canva pro” which is about $18 a month. That is usually long enough to complete a short. (After that, I just cancel my subscription until it’s time for my next project.)
• Next, I create a new project in Canva. You can use whatever aspect ratio you want, or you can just choose YouTube short or YouTube video.
• Next, I create a blank video for my opening titles, and choose my “theme song.”
  • Note: If you want to make money from YouTube, be sure and buy your theme songs directly from the artist/composer. You can find them very cheap. Don’t just download free “royalty free” songs, because even if they are royalty free, they are not copyright free, and YouTube can slap a copyright claim on them, even though you bought it legitimately. And a copyright claim will prevent you from earning revenue on your movie!
• Next, it’s time to create your first scene background. Because I cannot draw, I use an AI image generator to create my scene backgrounds. There are many of them out there – pick your favorite. (I often use a combination of many of them.)
• Next I use the AI image generator to create my characters, and props. And sometimes you have to create furniture, too. (For example, if a character is standing behind a table.)
• Now that I have all my images created for scene one, I put them all into a folder on my computer desktop and label it “scene 1.”
• Next, I create a blank video for scene one (be sure to choose the same aspect ratio as your opening credits) and I import everything into scene 1 in this order:
  • First, import the scene background
  • Second, import (upload) the dialogue lines and put those in the sound area below the scene background
  • At that point, I create a rough draft of scene 1 by putting all the lines in order,
• Next, I import the characters, props, and furniture and use the “remove background tool” on all of those
• Once I have everything imported into scene one, it’s time to make the characters move.
  • After you have the first frame looking the way you want, and you have all the characters and props in their correct places, just duplicate the first frame, and in the next frame, move the characters or props just tiny bit.
  • Continue to animate the scene, by duplicating the frame, moving the characters and props a little tiny bit, over and over again. (Be sure to use a computer mouse to do this – it’s too hard to do it with your computer pad.) Move it a little…duplicate the frame…move it a little…duplicate the frame
  • When you are all done with your first page of the screenplay (which should equal about a minute of film) change the frame length to 0.2 seconds (or 0.1 second if you want the characters to run, or the props to move very fast.)
  • I learned the hard way that if you change the frame time too early, it’s hard to go back and find the frame on the timeline when you need to edit it.
    • Note:.You will end up with a LOT of frames. Because of this, do not attempt to animate more than 1 page at a time in Canva, or it will crash. (This is the most frustrating part of the process.)
    • This is also why I prefer iMovie over Canva, because it doesn’t crash. ( I used to make my claymations with iMovie.) But unfortunately my Mac got stolen from my camper van, and I couldn’t afford to buy a new one. So, I basically have to limit myself to animating one minute at a time.
    • But iMovie has it’s limitations, too – it’s great for claymation, but you can’t remove the background on the characters and props, so it’s not so great for hybrid animation.
• After I am done shrinking down my frame length to 0.2 sec or 0.1 second, I go through each 1 minute scene several times to “polish” my rough draft until it looks and sounds the way I want it to, and to make sure the animation syncs up with the dialogue.
• Then, I add the visual effects, and sound effects.
• Then I add the speech bubbles. (I use speech bubbles instead of lip syncing for several reasons. First, because I don’t know how to do lip syncing. Second, because a lot of people watch YouTube without the sound on. And third, I don’t want to even try lip-syncing because I have an immune condition that causes severe light sensitivity and pattern sensitivity, and if I spend too much time going back and forth in my animations, I trigger a flare up of my immune condition.) Because of this, my animations end up looking like animated comic books, but it’s easier on my eyes and brain, and now, I guess it’s kind of my studio’s “signature” method of animation.
• I repeating the polishing process for each scene in my movie until I’m happy with the way it looks.
• When I am happy with each individual scene, I download them individually as video files, number them, then save them in a folder on my desktop.
• Then, I finally create my ending credits.
• Then, when I’m done with all the scenes (including opening credits and ending credits) I assemble them all together in one animation.
  • Sometimes you have to clip the first tiny bit of the beginning and ending of each clip to make the transitions smooth. Or you can add a transition from Canva.
• Then, finally, when it’s all done, I upload it to YouTube and give myself a pat on the back for finishing it.

*To see some examples of this type of hybrid stop-motion animation, you can watch “Spring Break: Earth” and “Sugar” on my Silly Side Productions website on the 2026 Contest Submissions page.

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