Sarah Wiesner
Age: 5th grade
Time: 6 class
periods
Focus: The
student's will learning how to transform a series of photos into a short
animation. They will get to choose the objects that they want to move, and they
will be either telling a story of making them move to music.
Objectives:
1. 4.2.1.2.1 - Create original works of media art
to express
specific
artistic ideas.
2.
4.3.1.2.2 - Revise a presentation based
on the feedback of others and self-reflection.
3. The students will be learning how to
organize a setting, and how to execute an animation.
Motivational Recourses:
I
will be giving a PowerPoint on stop motion and Claymation, as well as, have
visual references up to shop how characters could be made. The students will
also get to chance to see clips from films that use stop motion, and discuss
the strong and week points of the different videos they watched.
Art Material:
- Cameras
- Nic
nacs that would look interesting in a an animated setting
- Writing
tools
- Sheet
of solid colored material or an area that would work for a background.
- A few computers with the iMovie program on them.
Introduction:
Stop
motion is said to have first appeared in 1898 in a movie called "The Humpty
Dumpty Circus" (Stop Motion Central).
Only a small part of the movie was done in the stop animation style but
it opened the door to a new idea of how to create movies. Stop animation is
almost as old as animating itself. It is the organizing of still images into a
sequence that makes them look as if they are moving. Since its first appearance,
many other stop motion artists came about. Some of the examples that are most
familiar are Gumby, Tim Burton's Corpse
Bride and Nightmare before
Christmas, as well as Wallace and
Grommit (Stop motion Central).
Stop
motion was originally made by the animation of non-drawn objects. These objects
were usually very rigid and they were just moved slowly across their background
that made them look like they were in motion. Later the artists of this style began
to use materials such as puppets and Clay. These are a part of the stop motion
that we often see today. Wallace and Gromit
as well as Gumby are Claymation,
which is the form of stop motion that uses clay to execute their animation. The
students can focus on any form of stop motion that they want to, so Claymation
is an option for them to use. The other thing that is popular today is stop
motion with puppets, which is what Tim Burton is known for. No matter if the
students chose to make a Claymation or any other type of animation, their first
animation should be relatively basic so they do not feel over whelmed. The
artists should also stay very conscious of their background, the movie can be
either helped or hindered depending on what their background is doing. Stop animation
is a lot about timing; every thing that you do to your character will show up
in your video, so the artists always have to be careful that when they move the
piece they actually did what they were hoping it would do. That is why story
boarding is so important in large animation production.
Stop
animation is very rare in today's entertainment and as most of us know, the
most recognized name in the system is Tim Burton. Tim Burton grew up in
California and went to the California Art Institute. He enjoyed drawing from a
very young age and after he graduated from college he began taking on big Hollywood
productions. He did work on movies such as, Batman (1989), Beetle Juice (1988), Mars Attacks (1992), Charlie and the chocolate Factory (2005), and Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) (IMDb). When he first started at Disney he
worked on films such as the Fox and the Hound, however his artistic style was
very different from the other artists, but Disney saw that he had an unusual
but interesting style, and so they let him do a few films of his own. His first
short that he did was Vincent (a
story about a boy who wanted to be just like Vincent Price). This was a
wonderful look at what his art would be like later on in his career(IMDb). Even
though not many filmmakers are making stop animation any more, Tim Burton has
found a way to keep it alive and continuously interesting.
Instruction Procedure:
Class
1: This will be the intro day. We will be having a presentation on Claymation.
We will be watching clips from movies that used stop motion. Then we will be
setting up a stop motion project that will be involving the whole class.
Everyone will participate in this group Animation. By the end of this class the
students should have a good idea of what they are doing, and an idea of how to
use the medium.
Class
2: The class will start with an intro of what they are going to do in the
project. They will be splitting into groups that will be who they will be
working with for the rest of the project. Once they are in their groups the
students should decide whether they want to tell a short story or if they want
to do a music video. Then they should start planning their video out, and
sketching the characters. Encourage them to create a storyboard for their
videos. They should know exactly what they are doing for the next workday.
Class 3: This is the first day that
they will be working with the cameras. They will all be splitting into their
groups and getting to work. They should have made considerable progress into
their picture taking at the end of this class period.
Class 4: The students should start
loading the projects on the few computers we have. The students who are a
little behind will keep working and the others will start animating their
projects. The end of this class a few of the groups should have their pictures
on the computer. Assign the students to have the sound or music ready to put on
their video for the next class period.
Class 5: This class will be a
workday again. The students will be taking turns setting music to their movies.
The ones that were behind in the last class will load their pictures on the
computer. The students that are waiting for their turn on the computer will be
participating in other animation projects around the room.
Class 6: This will be the finish up
day and the students will be having a critique. We will treat it like a movie
premiere. The students should all comment on each other's work and give
constructive criticism based on how they fulfilled the requirements.
DBEA Checklist:
Art
Production: The students will be creating a stop motion and learn the
techniques to make it successful. They will need to be aware of the pieces and
the process of stop motion animating.
Aesthetics: They will have to learn
how to make the pieces move and look clean. Also using story-telling skills to
make the animation make sense.
Art History: They will be learning
about the history of stop motion, how it was come by, and who are the lead
animators working in that medium.
Art Criticism: The project will
require them to critique each other. Each child will have to look critically at
their peer's work as well as their own and give constructive criticism that are
based on the requirements for the assignment.
Bibliography:
O Reilly, Dermy . "A Brief History of Stop
Motion Animation!." Stop Motion Animation . 2007. Copyright
StopMotionCentral.com , Web. 6 Dec 2009. <http://www.stopmotioncentral.com/articles-5.html>.
Mr. Beale, . "Tim Burton." IMDb. 2006.
IMDb, Web. 6 Dec 2009. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000318/bio>.
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