Timelapse photography is amazing. It enables us to see the world in a whole new way. A god's-eye view. It works especially well in wide-angle, on large spaces (bigger the better) where there's a lot of motion – a bustling high street, a busy harbour, the starry night sky. It creates a fascinating, almost hypnotic effect as the world whizzes by in super time. Huge boats glide across the water like toys on ice, stars zip through the cosmos like fireworks, people flicker in and out of being like figures in a zoetrope.

The effect can be breathtaking, awe-inspiring. For example, take a look at this timeplase videos of the Planet Earth taken from the International Space Station.

Now that animation is so popular, though, it's lost some of its sparkle. The market isn't flooded, but there's water seeping under the door. The surge in weird, automated animations is a good example - the ones with those bobble-headed stick figures with the obviously computer-generated voices, hovering around the place bleeting about “biz-niz so-loot-shuns”, like some kind of creepy clip-art nightmare.

In most instances, anyway, it's probably best to avoid stock content. With animation, this is certainly the case. The point of animation is to stand out – not the contrary. Also, when has a creepy generic cartoon with a robot voice ever worked on anyone ever?

Your animation doesn't have to be revolutionary; just steer clear of doing exactly the same thing as everyone else. A large part of animation's power lies in its charm. Your animation will be effective if it capitalises on this.