A special feature of this program is the Overlay & Grid capability. You can overlay any customizable combination of evenly spaced horizontal & vertical reference lines. This is critical in creating a smooth and controllable animated sequence. No need for the "old school" grease pencil on the monitor technique of "Sledgehammer". Soundtrack was easy to grab a sound file and place it on the time line at the bottom of the screen with a visual graph of the track. I animated intuitively on the fly to a visual and aural reference of the soundtrack.

Compositing covers foreground and background capabilities, and includes a truncated stock library of thematic frames and backgrounds.

One of the tools in the Boinx box is a voice-activated remote control. If you do not want to have to walk back and forth to the computer between frames, this can be of great help. When Ray Harryhausen animated a scene, he respectfully asked everyone to leave the set. Ray's process required total uninterrupted focus when performing his fourth dimensional magic. This feature works in a similar way. When you say "capture," the program will fire off a frame. If there are uncontrolled noises (like other people), frames could be inadvertently captured. Not perfect but a useful convenience.

Overall, Boinx's efforts to offer a powerful easy-to-use stop-motion capture application will be appreciated by MAC users. It's about time stop-motion animators were supported with a world class program like iStopMotion Pro.

Gary Schwartz is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, award-winning animator, director and artist & educator. Schwartz conducts intensive hands-on animation workshops in elementary, middle, high school, under-graduate, graduate, post graduate, professional training, film festivals, museums, summer art camps, community centers, prisons and psychiatric hospitals nationally and internationally. Through his company, Single Frame Films (www.singleframefilms.com), Schwartz has produced, designed and directed animation for Disney, Sesame Street, MTV, Fox Television, the Corp. for Public Broadcasting and others. He is currently a lecturer at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design. His work has been exhibited in major museums and galleries internationally.