How to Make a Backrooms Stop-Motion Animation
Construct a cardboard Backrooms diorama set with signature yellow wallpaper, fluorescent lighting, and create a smooth stop-motion escape animation.
- Read the tools, materials, safety notes, and steps below for free.
- Tap Start Camera Coach when you want hands-free voice help.
- Allow camera and microphone. Point your phone at the work; the coach watches your progress and tells you the next step.
🧰 Required Tools & Equipment
- ✓ Precision craft knife
- ✓ Metal ruler
- ✓ Hot glue gun
- ✓ Miniature LED strip or puck light
- ✓ Smartphone on a sturdy tripod
- ✓ Stop-motion animation app
📦 Materials & Supplies
- ✓ Corrugated cardboard sheets
- ✓ Yellow patterned wallpaper printouts (mono-yellow vintage pattern)
- ✓ Dull beige/brown felt or textured paper for carpet
- ✓ White glue or glue stick
- ✓ Posable stick figure or miniature clay character
- ✓ Cardstock for ceiling tiles
⚠️ Safety Checkpoints & Warnings
- • Always cut away from your body on a self-healing mat using a sharp blade with minimal extension.
- • Do not touch the hot metal tip of the glue gun or squeeze hot glue directly with bare fingers.
- • Secure LED wiring so no bare wires contact combustible cardboard surfaces.
📋 Step-by-Step Guide (5 Steps)
Construct the Cardboard Maze Base and Walls
Measure and cut a 30x30 cm cardboard base and several 15 cm tall cardboard partition walls. Score joining tabs along the bottom of the walls and hot-glue them at right angles to form the iconic disorienting corridors. Ensure all walls stand perpendicular to the base so the camera view stays convincing.
- • Cardboard maze structure fixed firmly to the base with 90-degree vertical walls
- • Open corridor lanes wide enough to fit your hand and figure
- • Making corridor pathways too narrow for your hand to reposition the character during animation
- • Gluing walls crookedly
Apply Wallpaper and Carpet Textures
Apply a thin layer of glue stick across wall surfaces and smooth down printed yellow striped/floral wallpaper sheets, trimming any excess along top edges. Glue damp-looking beige felt or tan construction paper across the floor base to replicate the damp carpet texture. Smooth out all air pockets thoroughly.
- • Seamless yellow walls without bubbling or white edges showing
- • Entire floor covered in flat, matte beige carpet texture
- • Using watery PVA glue that wrinkles printed paper textures
- • Leaving bright white cut cardboard edges exposed at corridor corners
Install Fluorescent Ceiling Lights
Mount miniature LED lights across an open grid ceiling or upper wall brackets to mimic harsh office fluorescent lighting. Diffuse the LEDs with parchment paper or thin frosted plastic to eliminate harsh specular hotspots on your set. Hide power wires along the back exterior of the diorama.
- • Uniform, pale yellow-white overhead illumination washing evenly across corridor walls
- • No exposed wires visible in the camera frame
- • Using warm orange lighting instead of the eerie, sickly fluorescent greenish-yellow tone
- • Leaving visible bright LED diodes in camera frame
Frame the Camera and Lock Exposure
Mount your smartphone onto the tripod at eye-level with your miniature figure inside the corridor. Open the stop-motion app, lock auto-focus, white balance, and auto-exposure completely to eliminate light flickering between shots. Set the frame rate to 12 frames per second (fps) for crisp movement.
- • Camera locked firmly with corridor vanishing point centered or aligned along rule-of-thirds
- • Zero exposure shift or autofocus breathing when hand enters and exits the frame
- • Leaving auto-exposure enabled, causing flickering between animation frames
- • Bumping the tripod between captures
Animate Character Movement and Noclip Escape
Position your character at the corridor entrance, take a photo, move the limbs in 2-3 mm increments, and capture the next frame using onion-skinning as a guide. Build tension as the figure runs toward a glitchy wall section, then animate the character leaning forward and clipping halfway through the wall over 6 frames. In the final frames, remove the character completely and capture 3 empty corridor frames to complete the escape.
- • Consistent character motion trail showing smooth incremental displacement (2-3 mm per frame)
- • Illusion of character melting/noclipping through solid wall surface without set shifting
- • Moving the character in large, jerky jumps exceeding 10 mm per frame
- • Allowing character clay feet to lose grip and fall over mid-take
Credit: inspired by an original tutorial by toonz CRAFT — watch the original on YouTube.
Don’t have everything?
- No Yellow patterned wallpaper printouts (mono-yellow vintage pattern)? Yellow construction paper decorated with drawn brown grids using a fine-tip marker
- No Miniature LED strip or puck light? Small desk lamp with yellow cellophane or paper taped over the shade as a diffuser
- No Bluetooth shutter remote? 3-second countdown timer mode inside the stop-motion capture app