Stop Motion

Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Motion animation using clay is called clay animation or clay-mation.

Stereoscopic stop motion

Stop motion has very rarely been shot in stereoscopic 3D throughout film history. The first 3D stop motion short was In Tune With Tomorrow(also known as Motor Rhythm) in 1939 by John Norling. The second stereoscopic stop motion release was The Adventures of Sam Space in 1955 by Paul Sprunck. The third and latest stop motion short in stereo 3D was The Incredible Invasion of the 20,000 Giant Robots from Outer Space in 2000 by Elmer Kaan  and Alexander Lentjes. This is also the first ever 3D stereoscopic stop motion and CGI short in the history of film. The first all stop motion 3D feature is Coraline (2009), based on Neil Gaiman's best-selling novel and directed by Henry Selick.

Go motion

Another more-complicated variation on stop motion is go motion, co-developed by Phil Tippett and first used on the films The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Dragonslayer (1981), and the RoboCop films. Go motion involved programming a computer to move parts of a model slightly during each exposure of each frame of film, combined with traditional hand manipulation of the model in between frames, to produce a more realistic motion blurring effect. Tippett also used the process extensively in his 1983 short film Prehistoric Beast, a 12 minute long sequence depicting a herbivorous dinosaur, being chased by a carnivorous dinosaur. With new footage Prehistoric Beast became Dinosaur! in 1985, a full length dinosaurs documentary hosted by Christopher Reeve. Those Phil Tippett's go motion tests acted as motion models for his first photo-realistic use of computers to depict dinosaurs in Jurassic Park in 1993. A lo-tech, manual version of this blurring technique was originally pioneered by Wladyslaw Starewicz in the silent era, and was used in his feature film The Tale of the Fox (1931).

Computer generated imagery

The almost universal use of CGI (computer generated imagery) has effectively rendered stop motion obsolete as a serious special effects tool in feature film. However, its low entry price, and still unique "look" and "feel" on film means stop motion is still used on some projects such as in children's programming, as well as in commercials and comic shows such as Robot Chicken. The argument that the textures achieved with CGI cannot match the way real textures are captured by stop motion also makes it valuable for a handful of movie makers, notably Tim Burton, whose puppet-animated film Corpse Bride was released in 2005.

Still motion is a method of displaying many images one after another as frames, using the technique of "Frame-by-Frame", similar to the concept of Stop Motion. The difference between this and Stop motion, however, is that still motion is not a method of animation and therefore, each frame does not have to be related in any way. It is a style of editing which is usually used to create an intense effect.

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Create a Stop Motion Animation

If you were wondering how they create movies such asWallace and Gromit or those groovy Lego shorts onYouTube, your search is over! Although creating stop motion animation is not difficult, it is time-consuming, repetitive and requires patience. As long as you're forewarned and keen, this makes a fantastic hobby and sometimes even grows into a career.

1. Get objects and figures to use in your movie. Some good choices include clay, wire, Lego or similar building block figures, Playmobil™ figures, small dolls with a lot of flexibility, or string and wooden bead characters.Some people even use Peeps! Be imaginative in the types of objects and figures that might work for your movie. For amateaurs, it's best to use a toy rather then making a figure, as it is easier to animate.


2. Link titlewill be doing -- walking, raising an arm, nodding yes, moving something, or whatever. Note that if you are using Legos that they cannot nod and are not as movable as regular action figures.
3. Set up the figures (characters) in a particular position and within their set. This photo shows a Lego set.

4. Place your camera in front of the "set" that you are going to take photos of. Check that it can view the entire frame. It is very important to support the camera or place it so that it is sitting steadily and cannot shake as you take the photos. Otherwise, the end result will appear chaotic and lack continuity. Keep in mind that the more photos, the smoother the video results. If you do not have a tripod, good alternatives include balancing on solid books, poster tack on the surface of the set or a piece of solid furniture at the same height. In single frame, 24 pictures equals one second of film. It's best to take two pictures of the same shot, so you only require 12.

5. 

Set up a good source of lighting. It might be a lamp or a flashlight. If your light is flickering, you need to shut off other sources of light. Close the blind, or curtains etc.
6. Take a single photo of the figure in the selected position. This photo shows the Lego set being readied for photographing.
7. Begin the movement sequence. Move the figure bit by bit - very small movements each time. It may be the entire body if the figure is walking, or it may just be an arm, head or leg. If you are moving only one body part and you find that the figure is tilting or threatening to fall over, make use of poster tack under the feet or other area touching part of the set.
8. Observe the following sequence of a Lego figure shoot to see how very small the changes must be (and remember that this is only a few of the frames to be taken!):

            

9. Repeat the movement sequence until your action step is completed, or your camera's memory is full.

10. Save the pictures onto your computer in an easy to remember place.

11. Use your movie-making software as instructed (or see two popular software methods below). The basics involve:

1. • Import the pictures into the desired program.
   • Make sure the pictures are at a very small duration so they flow very fast. If you are disappointed by the speed at which your program can animate, try exporting the project as a video file (before adding audio), then importing it again, and using a speed effect on it, such as double speed (these effects only work on video clips). Then, if the resulting speed is sufficient, you may add your audio.
   • Add titles and credits if you would like.
   • Make sure you like the end result of your stop motion animation. Keep going if you need to complete more actions to create a story.
   • Save the video. If you plan on having multiple stop motion segments, save each segment as a separate movie. Once the entire group of segments is completed, you can import all the segments into the final movie, and it will look much better and be a lot easier to finalize.

12. Add effects or transitions, or whatever else you feel makes it look good.

13. Share your movie by burning it into a CD or place it into an iPod. Continue making other ones!

Virtual Dub Method

1. Virtual Dub will be used for saving the multiple image files as a movie, ready for editing with another program.
2. Have all your pictures in 1 place, all named in the correct order
3. In Virtual Dub go file > open, from the File type drop down select 'Image Sequence'. Select the first image, Virtual Dub will then automatically import all other pictures that follow in numerical order (E.g, DCM1000, DCM1001, DCM1002)
4. Go video > frame rate and choose a frame rate for your movie. The higher the frame rate, the more images are shown per second (25FPS will show 25 pictures per second). Change the frame rate and keep testing until you are happy with it.
5. Change video and audio compression if needed.
6. Finally go file > save as avi. Now your images are a movie sequence, ready for editing in another program such as Windows Movie maker, Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere.

Windows Movie Maker Method

Please note; Windows Movie Maker does not 'officially' support converting images into a movie sequence, if possible use a different program.

1. Open up Windows Movie Maker.
2. Import the pictures.
3. Click "Tools", then "Options". Do this before placing the pictures into the timeline.
4. Click the "Advanced" tab.
5. Change the picture duration to 0.125 seconds a frame (the lowest setting). This is found under "Picture Options".
6. Ensure that the pictures are in the correct order.
7. Load the pictures into the storyboard.
8. Add titles and credits if desired.
9. Go to "Finish Movie" and click whichever option is suitable.

Capture Video Method

1. Go to "File", then "Capture Video..."
2. Go to the "Capture Screen" - you need a camera plugged into the computer, click "Start Recording". When a second goes by, click "Stop".
3. Move your object.
4. Click "Start". Do it for a second more. It doesn't have to be perfect.
5. Move the video clip(s) onto the timeline - you will need to go to timeline view if you are on the storyboard.
6. Right click the first video clip, and click "Video Effects."
7. Choose the "speed up, double" selection. You will want to do this 1 or 2 more times (you can choose it multiple times with one action; you don't have to keep right clicking). Do this for each clip. Now you will have each frame without using space in your documents.

Tips

• Make sure your battery is fully charged.
• Stay out of the way of or position the light source so you don't create distracting shadows over your animation that change with each frame.
• To reduce flicker and create a smoother animation, set your camera's white balance and exposure settings on manual mode so they don't change with each shot.
• If you use clay as your medium, try putting wire inside the clay; this will help you move the figures more easily.
• If objects are going to be moving limbs, make sure you can keep them in that one position without holding on to them. Poster tack works well for this, or even looped over adhesive tape.
• If your computer is slightly slow, and you try to preview your video in the editing stage, all the pictures may not play and the film will get stuck on one image. It's okay for this to happen, as when you save it, it will flow fine.
• If you want your object to look like it is going away or being eaten, such as in the video at the third link, just simply make it almost being eaten then take out the object altogether.
• Add music and sound effects for additional interest.
• If you do not want every frame saved on your computer, then you can delete them.
• You do not need Windows Movie Maker. There are some programs specifically for stop motion that are better. Windows Movie Maker is free though, which is often a compelling reason!
• This way of making movies can take probably half an hour to maybe 2-3 hours, depending on how long the movie is, so make sure to have a lot of patience when making a movie.
• Watch other stop motion animations for inspiration. These may give you some new ideas about how to do your own animation. Wallace and Gromit, Fantastic Mr Fox and Knox are fresh and popular animations.
• You will become faster at moving the figures and judging the distances the more you practice.
• If frames in Windows Movie Maker are too long/short, you can use the double (x2) speed or half (x0.5) speed effect on the video for longer or shorter frames.
• When you are beginning, try shooting the sequences where characters are moving, fighting, etc. in stop motion. when they are talking, just take single shots of their faces. It speeds up the process, and it actually looks okay.
• If you want to make a toy fly (such as a pterodactyl or a bird), attach clear string to it. Hold it up in the air for every shot that you want it to fly. Make sure you have 2 people working on this part.
• Make sure that your camera is compatible with any movie maker you are using. If the movie maker will not find your files, you might have to download a different software for movie making.

Warnings

• Doing this too long will cause a case of extreme boredom and you may feel frustrated. Give it a break after a sequence is completed if you feel this way and note down on paper where you have suspended the process so that when you come back, you know where to pick up from.
• Don't get discouraged if your video turns out to be very short. An hour's worth of work may turn into a 30 second video. It all depends on the frame per second rate. You can use anywhere from 6-30. the more frames per second, the smoother, but more time must be invested.
• Make sure to frequently save your video in case the program freezes or turns unresponsive. If you have to close your video in the middle of editing, don't worry. Note that Windows Movie Maker does have an automatic saving feature.
• Set your camera resolution low enough that your individual frames are not huge files. If you've already shot and each picture file is too big, you can reduce file sizes in batches in PhotoShop. Large file sizes for images are likely to overwhelm the computer's memory. Best to keep each frame close to half a MB unless you're using professional software. You can also compress the images using some form of compression software.

Things You'll Need

• Digital camera
• Monopod or tripod; or try books, magazines to lean camera on
• Video editing software
• Figures and set materials
• A lamp or two to ensure good lighting
• A story

Related wikiHows

• How to Use Movie Clip to Make a Music Video for YouTube
• How to Convert a Video Into a Gif Animation
• How to Create a Flash Animation
• How to Create a Clay Animation
• How to Make a Stop Motion Film Using a Computer

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 Incredible Stop Motion Videos

Roger Waters

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founding member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter and conceptual leader. The band subsequently achieved worldwide success in the 1970s with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall. Although Waters' primary instrument in Pink Floyd was the bass guitar, he also experimented with synthesisers and tape loops and played rhythm guitars in recordings and in concerts. Amid creative differences within the group, Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and began a legal battle with the remaining members over their future use of the group's name and material. The dispute was settled out of court in 1987, and nearly eighteen years passed before he performed with Pink Floyd again. It is estimated that as of 2010, the group have sold over 200 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million units sold in the United States.


Waters' solo career includes three studio albums: The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984), Radio K.A.O.S. (1987) and Amused to Death (1992). In 1986, he contributed songs and a score to the soundtrack of the animated movie When the Wind Blows based on the Raymond Briggs' book of the same name. In 1990, he staged one of the largest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, with an estimated 200,000 people in attendance. In 1996, he was inducted into the US and the UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. He has toured extensively as a solo act since 1999 and played The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety for his world tours of 2006–2008. In 2005, he released Ca Ira, an opera in three acts translated from Etienne Roda-Gil and his wife Nadine Delahaye's libretto based on the early French Revolution. On 2 July 2005, he reunited with Pink Floyd bandmates Nick Mason, Richard Wright and David Gilmour for the Live 8 charity concert, the group's only appearance with Waters since their last performance with him 24 years earlier.
In 2010, he began The Wall Live, a worldwide tour that features a complete performance of The Wall. During this tour, at The O2 Arena in London on 12 May 2011, Gilmour and Mason (by then the only remaining members of Pink Floyd) once again appeared with Waters, Gilmour performing "Comfortably Numb", and Gilmour and Mason joining Waters for "Outside the Wall".
He has been married three times and has three children.

Pink Floyd - Formation and Barrett-led period:
By September 1963, Waters and Mason were losing interest in their studies and they moved into the lower flat of Stanhope Gardens, owned by Mike Leonard, a part-time tutor at the Regent Street Polytechnic. Waters, Mason and Wright first played music together in the autumn of 1963, in a group formed by vocalist Keith Noble and bassist Clive Metcalfe. The group usually called themselves Sigma 6, but they also used the name the Meggadeaths. Waters played rhythm guitar and Mason played drums, Wright played on any keyboard he could arrange to use, and Noble's sister Sheilagh provided an occasional vocal accompaniment. In the early years the band performed during private functions and rehearsed in a tearoom in the basement of Regent Street Polytechnic.
When Metcalfe and Noble left to form their own group in September 1963, the remaining members asked Barrett and guitar player Bob Klose to join. By January 1964, the group became known as the Abdabs, or the Screaming Abdabs. During the autumn of 1964, the band used the names Leonard's Lodgers, Spectrum Five, and eventually, the Tea Set. Sometime during the autumn of 1965, the Tea Set began calling itself the Pink Floyd Sound, later, the Pink Floyd, and by early 1966,Pink Floyd.
By early 1966 Barrett was Pink Floyd's front-man, guitarist, and songwriter.He wrote or co-wrote all but one track of their debut LP The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, released in August 1967. Waters contributed the song "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" (his first sole writing credit) to the album. However, by late 1967, Barrett's deteriorating mental health and increasingly erratic behaviour, rendered him "unable or unwilling" to continue in his capacity as Pink Floyd's singer-songwriter and lead guitarist. Working with Barrett eventually proved too difficult, so in early March 1968 Pink Floyd met with managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King of Blackhill Enterprises to discuss the band's future. Barrett agreed to leave Pink Floyd, and the band "agreed to Blackhill's entitlement in perpetuity" with regard to "past activities". The band's new manager Steve O'Rourke made a formal announcement about the departure of Barrett and the arrival of David Gilmour in April 1968.


Waters-led period :
Filling the void left by Barrett's departure in March 1968, Waters began to chart Pink Floyd's artistic direction. He became the principal songwriter, lyricist, and co-lead vocalist (along with Gilmour, and at times, Wright), and would remain the band's dominant creative figure until his departure in 1985. He wrote the lyrics to the five Pink Floyd albums preceding his own departure, starting with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and ending with The Final Cut (1983), while exerting progressively more creative control over the band and its music. With lyrics written entirely by Waters, The Dark Side of the Moon was one of the most commercially successful rock albums of all time. As of 2004 it has spent 723 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart and sold over 35 million copies worldwide. It was selling over 8,000 units every week as of 2004. According to Pink Floyd biographer Glen Povey, Dark Side is the world's second best-selling album, and the United States' 21st best-selling album of all time.
Waters produced thematic ideas that became the impetus for the Pink Floyd concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), and The Wall (1979)—written largely by Waters—and The Final Cut (1983)—written entirely by Waters. He referred or alluded to the cost of war and the loss of his father throughout his work, from "Corporal Clegg" (A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968) and "Free Four" (Obscured By Clouds, 1972) to "Us and Them" from The Dark Side of the Moon, "When the Tigers Broke Free", first used in the feature film, The Wall (1982), later included with "The Fletcher Memorial Home" on The Final Cut, an album dedicated to his father. The theme and composition of The Wall was influenced by his upbringing in an English society depleted of men after the Second World War.

The Dark Side of the Moon:

The band's next album, titled The Dark Side of the Moon (an allusion to lunacy, rather than astronomy), was recorded between May 1972 and January 1973 with EMI staff engineer Alan Parsons at Abbey Road. Late in the album's production Parsons was assisted by producer Chris Thomas, who became responsible for significant changes such as the echo used on "Us and Them". The album's packaging was designed by Hipgnosis and bore George Hardie's iconic refracting prism on the cover. Since Barrett's departure the burden of lyrical composition had fallen mostly on Waters and he is therefore credited as the author of the album's lyrics. The band filmed studio footage for Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii before beginning a tour of Europe in 1972. 

The Dark Side of the Moon was released in March 1973 and became an instant chart success in Britain and throughout Western Europe. The critical reaction was generally enthusiastic. Melody Maker's Roy Hollingworth described side one as "...so utterly confused with itself it was difficult to follow," but praised side two writing, "The songs, the sounds, the rhythms were solid and sound, Saxophone hit the air, the band rocked and rolled, and then gushed and tripped away into the night." In his 1973 album review for Rolling Stone magazine, Lloyd Grossman wrote, "a fine album with a textural and conceptual richness that not only invites, but demands involvement." Throughout March 1973 it featured as part of their US tour, including a midnight performance at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on 17 March.

The success of the album brought previously unknown wealth to all four members of the band. Richard Wright and Roger Waters bought large country houses while Nick Mason became a collector of expensive cars. Much of the album's early state-side success has been attributed to the efforts of Pink Floyd's US record company, Capitol Records. Newly appointed chairman Bhaskar Menon reversed the relatively poor performance of the band's previous US releases but, disenchanted with Capitol, the band and manager O'Rourke negotiated a new contract with Columbia Records. The Dark Side of the Moon was the last album that Pink Floyd were obliged to release before formally signing a new contract. Menon's efforts to secure a contract renewal with Pink Floyd were in vain and the band signed for Columbia, with a reported advance fee of US$1M ($4,942,149 today), while in Britain and Europe they continued to be represented by Harvest Records.

The Wall:

Waters presented the band with two new ideas, in July 1978. The first was a 90-minute demo given the provisional title Bricks in the Wall and the other would later become Waters' first solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking. Although both Mason and Gilmour were initially cautious the former (inspired by the recent spitting incident) was chosen to be their next album. Bob Ezrin was brought in as co-producer and he wrote a forty-page script for the new album. The story was based on the central character of Pink—a character inspired by Waters' childhood experiences, the most notable of which was the death of his father in World War II. This first 'brick in the wall' led to more problems, Pink would become so drug-addled and worn down by the music industry that he would transform into a megalomaniac, a development inspired partly by the decline of Syd Barrett. At the end of the album the increasingly fascist audience would watch as Pink 'tore down the wall', once again becoming a normal caring person. 

Although Pink Floyd rarely released singles, and had not done so since 1968, the album was promoted with "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)", which topped the charts in the US and the UK. A National Endowment for the Arts and RIAA poll named "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" one of the 365 Songs of the Century in 2001. The Wall was released on 30 November 1979 and topped the Billboard charts for fifteen weeks. The Wall ranks No.4 of all time on the RIAA's list of the Top 100 albums, with 23 million certified units sold in the US alone, and remains one of the band's best-selling albums. The cover is one of their most minimalist designs, with a simple white brick wall, and no logo or band name.

The Wall was written almost entirely by Waters and is largely based on his life story, and having sold over 23 million RIAA certified units in the US as of 2010, is one of the top three best-selling albums of all-time in America, according to RIAA. Pink Floyd hired Bob Ezrin to co-produce the album, and cartoonist Gerald Scarfe to illustrate the album's sleeve art. The last band performance of The Wall was on 16 June 1981, at Earls Court London, and this was Pink Floyd's last appearance with Waters until the band's brief reunion at 2 July 2005 Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, 24 years later.

In March 1983, the last Waters–Gilmour–Mason collaboration, The Final Cut, was released. The album was subtitled: "A requiem for the post-war dream by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd". Waters is credited with writing all the lyrics as well as all the music on the album. His lyrics to the album were critical of the Conservative Party government of the day and mention Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by name. At the time Gilmour did not have any material for the album, so he asked Waters to delay the recording until he could write some songs, but Waters refused. According to Mason, after power struggles within the band and creative arguments about the album, Gilmour's name "disappeared" from the production credits, though he retained his pay. Rolling Stone magazine gave the album five stars, with Kurt Loder calling it "a superlative achievement" and "art rock's crowning masterpiece". Loder viewed the work as "essentially a Roger Waters solo album".

Solo Career:

Following the release of The Final Cut, Waters embarked on a solo career that produced three concept albums and a movie soundtrack. In 1984, he released his first solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, a project about a man's dreams across one night that dealt with Waters' feelings about his failed marriage to Judy Trim, sex, and the pros and cons of monogamy and family life versus "the call of the wild". In the end the character, Reg, chooses love and matrimony over promiscuity. The album featured guitarist Eric Clapton, jazz saxophonist David Sanborn, and artwork by Scarfe. Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder described The Pros And Cons of Hitch Hiking as a "strangely static, faintly hideous record", Rolling Stone rated the album a "rock bottom" one star." Years later, Mike DeGagne of Allmusic praised the album for its, "ingenious symbolism" and "brilliant use of stream of consciousness within a subconscious realm", rating it four out of five stars. Waters began touring the new album aided by Clapton, a new band, new material, and a selection of Pink Floyd favourites. Waters débuted his tour in Stockholm on 16 June 1984. Poor ticket sales plagued the tour, and some of the larger venues had to be cancelled. By his own estimate, he lost £400,000 on the tour. In March 1985, Waters went to North America to play smaller venues with the Pros and Cons Plus Some Old Pink Floyd Stuff — North America Tour 1985. The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking has been certified Gold by the RIAA.

In 1986, Waters contributed songs and a score to the soundtrack of the animated movie When the Wind Blows, based on the Raymond Briggs book of the same name. His backing band featuring Paul Carrack was credited as The Bleeding Heart Band. In 1987, Waters released Radio K.A.O.S., a concept album based on a mute man named Billy from an impoverished Welsh mining town who has the ability to physically tune into radio waves in his head. Billy first learns to communicate with a radio DJ, and eventually to control the world's computers. Angry at the state of the world in which he lives, he simulates a nuclear attack. Waters followed the release with a supporting tour also in 1987. 

In November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, and in July 1990 Waters staged one of the largest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, on the vacant terrain between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, with an estimated 200,000 people in attendance. Leonard Cheshire asked him to do the concert to raise funds for charity. Waters' group of musicians included Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams, Scorpions, and Sinéad O'Connor. Waters also used an East German symphony orchestra and choir, a Soviet marching band, and a pair of helicopters from the US 7th Airborne Command and Control Squadron. Designed by Mark Fisher, the Wall was 25 metres tall and 170 metres long and was built across the set. Scarfe's inflatable puppets were recreated on an enlarged scale, and although many rock icons received invitations to the show, Gilmour, Mason, and Wright, did not. Waters released a concert double album of the performance which has been certified platinum by RIAA.

In 1990 Waters hired manager Mark Fenwick and left EMI for a worldwide deal with Columbia. He released his third studio album, Amused to Death, in 1992. The record is heavily influenced by the events of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the Gulf War, and a critique of the notion of war becoming the subject of entertainment, particularly on television. The title was derived from the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Patrick Leonard, who had also worked on A Momentary Lapse of Reason, co-produced the album. Jeff Beck played lead guitar on many of the album's tracks, which were recorded with an impressive cast of musicians at ten different recording studios. It is Waters' most critically acclaimed solo recording, garnering some comparison to his previous work with Pink Floyd. Waters described the record as a, "stunning piece of work", ranking the album with Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall as one of the best of his career. The album had one hit, the song "What God Wants, Pt. 1", which reached number 35 in the UK in September 1992 and number 5 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in the US. Amused to Death was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry. Sales of Amused to Death topped out at around one million and there was no tour in support of the album. Waters would first perform material from it seven years later during his In the Flesh tour. In 1996, Waters was inducted into the US and UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd.

1999–2004:

In 1999, after a nearly 12-year hiatus from touring, and a 7-year absence from the music industry, Waters embarked on the In the Flesh Tour, performing both solo and Pink Floyd material. The tour was a financial success in the US and though Waters had booked mostly smaller venues, tickets sold so well that many of the concerts were upgraded to larger ones. The tour eventually stretched across the world and would span three years. A concert film was released on CD and DVD, named In the Flesh Live. During the tour, he played two new songs "Flickering Flame" and "Each Small Candle" as the final encore to many of the shows. In June 2002, he completed the tour with a performance in front of 70,000 people at the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts, playing 15 Pink Floyd songs and five songs from his solo catalog. 

Miramax announced in mid-2004 that a production of The Wall was to appear on Broadway with Waters playing a prominent role in the creative direction. Reports stated that the musical contained not only the original tracks from The Wall, but also songs from Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and other Pink Floyd albums, as well as new material. On the night of 1 May 2004, recorded extracts from the opera, including its overture, were played on the occasion of the Welcome Europe celebrations in the accession country of Malta. Gert Hof mixed recorded excerpts from the opera into a continuous piece of music which was played as an accompaniment to a large light and fireworks display over Grand Harbour in Valletta. In July 2004, Waters released two new tracks on the Internet: "To Kill the Child", inspired by the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and "Leaving Beirut", "inspired by his travels in the Middle East as a teenager". The lyrics to "Leaving Beirut" contain strong attacks on former US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

  
        In June 2006, he commenced The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour, a two-year, world spanning effort that began in Europe in June and North America in September. The first half of the show featured both Pink Floyd songs and Waters' solo material, while the second half included a complete live performance of the 1973 Pink Floyd album, The Dark Side of the Moon, the first time in over three decades that Waters had performed the album. The shows ended with an encore from the third side of The Wall. He utilised elaborate staging by concert lighting designer Marc Brickman complete with laser lights, fog machines, flame throwers, psychedelic projections, and inflatable floating puppets (Spaceman and Pig) controlled by a "handler" dressed as a butcher, and a full 360 degree 

quadrophonic sound system was used. Nick Mason joined Waters for The Dark Side of the Moon set and the encores on select 2006 tour dates.[96] Waters continued touring in January 2007 in Australia and New Zealand then Asia, Europe, South America, and back to North America in June.

Activism:

After the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and subsequent tsunami disaster, Waters performed "Wish You Were Here" with Eric Clapton during a benefit concert on the American network NBC. He was outspoken against the Hunting Act of 2004, and performed a concert for, and attended marches supporting, the Countryside Alliance. Waters explained:

I've become disenchanted with the political and philosophical atmosphere in England. The anti-hunting bill was enough for me to leave England. I did what I could, I did a concert and one or two articles, but it made me feel ashamed to be English. I was in Hyde Park for both the Countryside Alliance marches. There were hundreds of thousands of us there. Good, honest English people. That's one of the most divisive pieces of legislation we've ever had in Great Britain. It's not a case of whether or not I agree with fox hunting, but I will defend to the hilt their right to take part in it."

In October 2005, he clarified: "I come back to the UK quite often. I didn't leave as a protest against the hunting ban; I was following a child in the wake of a divorce." After leaving Britain, he moved to Long Island in New York with his fiancé Laurie Durning. In July 2007, he played on the American leg of the Live Earth concert, an international multi-venue concert aimed at raising awareness about global climate change, featuring the Trenton Youth Choir and his trademarked inflatable pig. Waters told David Fricke why he thinks The Wall is still relevant today:

" The loss of a father is the central prop on which The Wall stands. As the years go by, children lose their fathers again and again, for nothing. You see it now with all these fathers, good men and true, who lost their lives and limbs in Iraq for no reason at all. I've done Bring The Boys Back Home in my encore on recent tours. It feels more relevant and poignant to be singing that song now than it did in 1979".

In 2007, Waters became a spokesman for Millennium Promise, a non-profit organisation that helps fight extreme poverty and malaria. He wrote an opinion piece for CNN in support of the topic. Waters has been outspoken about Middle Eastern politics and in June 2009, he openly opposed the Israeli separation barrier, calling it an "obscenity" that "should be torn down". In December 2009, Waters pledged his support to the Gaza Freedom March and in March 2011, he announced that he had joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. 

Equipment and instruments:

Waters' primary instrument in Pink Floyd was the electric bass guitar. He briefly played a Höfner bass but replaced it with a Rickenbacker RM-1999/4001S, until around 1970 when he switched to Fender Precision Basses. First seen at a concert in Hyde Park, London in July 1970, the black P-Bass was rarely used until April 1972 when it became his main stage guitar and as of 2 October 2010, the basis for a Fender Artist Signature model. Waters endorses RotoSound Jazz Bass 77 flat-wound strings. Throughout his career he has used Selmer, WEM, Hiwatt and Ashdown amplifiers, also employing delay, tremolo, chorus, stereo panning and phaser effects in his bass playing. 

Not only a bassist and vocalist, Waters experimented with the EMS Synthi A and VCS 3 synthesisers on Pink Floyd pieces such as "On the Run", "Welcome to the Machine", and "In the Flesh?"  He played electric and acoustic guitar on Pink Floyd tracks using Fender, Martin, Ovation and Washburn guitars. He played electric guitar on the Pink Floyd song "Sheep", from Animals, and acoustic guitar on several Pink Floyd recordings, such as "Pigs on the Wing 1 & 2", also from Animals, "Southampton Dock" from The Final Cut, and on "Mother" from The Wall. A Binson Echorec 2 echo effect was used on his bass-guitar track in "One of These Days".

Some of his best lyrics:
Three Wishes: 
"There's something in the airWho you've just learned to miss
And the road leads on to glory but
You used up your last wish
Your last wish
And you want her to come homeBring her home

And you don't know what it isYou see someone through the window"

Perfect Sense:

"When you add it all up
The tears and the marrowbone
There's an ounce of gold
And an ounce of pride in each ledger
And the Germans kill the Jews
And the Jews kill the Arabs
And the Arabs kill the hostages
And that is the news
And is it any wonder that the monkey's confused
He said Mama Mama, the President's a fool
Why do I have to keep reading these technical manuals
And the joint chiefs of staff
And the brokers on Wall Street said
Don't make us laugh, you're a smart kid
Time is linear
Memory's a stranger
History is for fools
Man is a tool in the hands
Of the great God Almighty
And they gave him command of a nuclear submarineSent him back in search of the Garden of Eden"

Reference/Wikipedia