For amateur or novice directors, stop motion special effects offer a viable option for both entertaining and artistic filmmaking. While the process can be at times painstakingly tedious, the stop motion technique allows for a story to be told without any real acting talent required, thus no auditions, less paying wages to actors or recruiting volunteer extras, and even better, no actor egos. The most famous form of stop motion is clay-mation, in which clay figures are repositioned frame by frame to create a “flipbook” motion type of effect. Though clay is a popular choice due to the degree to which it can be easily altered, the concept works for any object with movable parts, including Barbies, dolls and action figures. While full stop motion films fall under the category of animation, thus may fall short of authentic directing in the eye of some critics, when done well they can still showcase a visionary’s brilliance and creative flair. Stop motion, and clay-mation in particular, have become staples on YouTube in recent years as comical ideas and storylines can be easily acted out without the need for big budget special effects. After all, even middle-schoolers can afford a couple cans of play-doh on their weekly allowance. The advent of social media and video sharing has catapulted stop motion back into mainstream consciousness.Despite advancements in computer animation and other more sophisticated movie making technologies, stop motion films have maintained a relevant place in the professional industry as well, perhaps due to their intrinsically quirky quality and the artistic/technical expertise necessary to turn out impressive bigger budget stop motion features. Major Hollywood directors such as Tim Burton and Henry Selick have made major waves in the movie industry with their large scale stop motion films, including The Nightmare Before Christmas (Burton and Selick), James and the Giant Peach (Selick), Coraline (Selick) and Corpse Bride (Burton).