I have been living, breathing and dreaming about Stop Motion Animation for the past several weeks. This summer I have the awesome opportunity to teach for the North Suburban Summer Academy for gifted students. The class I designed is all about Stop Motion Animation (Think Wallace and Gromit style animation). I have done Stop Motion with kids in the past, and they loved it….but usually only for an hour or two at a time. What was I going to do for 4 hours/day for 13 days? Wow, I should not have worried. We have been working for 3 days and my 21 amazing animators have already mastered the basics and are using words like “pre-production” and “armature”. I love it. Today we had an extended day when most classes go on a field trip, but we made our first full animation and the kids worked diligently, cooperatively and creatively for about 3 hours straight. When we stopped for lunch, they could hardly wait to get back to the classroom.
Development: Writing our scripts
Pre-Production: Building Sets and characters
Production: Animating!
OK, enough blathering on about my super students. Why Stop Motion? Stop Motion is great for kids because it requires an incredible amount of patients, teamwork and creativity. Also, I have found it is pretty self -differentiating. Kids of all ages, levels and abilities are able to make the animations successfully. Oh, and did I mention it’s FUN!? I’m having a blast teaching them the history or animation and basics of video production and they are eating it up.
Their task today was pretty hilarious. They worked in groups of 3 and chose 3 slips of paper out of a basket: A thing, place and action. For example, when I did my demonstration, I got “Pencil exploring jungle”. They had to write a script and storyboard and create their sets, characters and props. Here are some of their creations from today:
They haven’t learned how to add narration or sound effects yet, but this is what they came up with after 2 days! I can’t wait to see what they are making at the end of our 3 weeks!
This experience has already refreshed and revived me as a teacher! Can I please teach animation all day, everyday?
