This is truly one of my favorite project I do with Art II. It continuously amazes and surprises me how responsive students are to learning about motion pictures, and animation on the development side, in addition to the creativity they bring to the table in their final works. The project is taught as a unit, with three lessons encompassing the whole. The first one being "setting the scene" where they refresh on topics of atmospheric perspective in art one and develop a set for the movie to take place. Next we move into "creating the character" where they work on character development as well as their clay figure who is the antagonist of the show. This ties in some back story design that is influence by our schools creative writing program. The final step in the lesson is the animation, which ties together the scene the character and digital technologies to create a 30 second animation.
The project overview
•We will be creating a 15-30 second stop motion animation
•This includes the scene
•The character
•And the creation of the animation (Rated G for all ages)
Setting the Scene
warm-up: List as many different animations (Movies, games, applications etc..) that use animation in one minuet. This usually gets everyone motivated and interested in the introduction of the lesson, because we can see on paper just how influential animation is in out lives.
First for some history
I enjoy showing students the progression of animation through out the years so they can get a feel for how it has developed and improved over time from hand drawing to digital animation.
1877 EadeardMuybridge- First to create continuous moving photo sequences (much like stop motion) pioneered the idea of film
1891 stop motion animation created by Stuart Blacktonand Albert E. Smith for Vitagraph'sThe Humpty Dumpty Circus1928 Steam Boat Willie- First synchronized sound animation- Walt Disney
1937 Snow white and the seven dwarfs : first full length feature film animation- Walt Disney Animation Studio
1957 Walt Disney golden era full length feature films.
1995 Pixar releases Toy Story as the fist computer animated feature film
Vocabulary
Visual Movement- The principle of art used to create the look and feeling of action and guides the viewers eye through a work of art. ( Art Talk 4thaddition)
Animation: the technique of photographing successive drawings or positions of puppets or models to create an illusion of movement when the movie is shown as a sequence.
Stop Motion: cinematographic technique whereby the camera is repeatedly stopped and started, for example to give animated figures the impression of movement.
Setting: The context and environment in which a situation is set; the background. The time, place, and circumstances in which a narrative, drama, or film takes place.
five types of animation
after video discussion
Has your view of animation changed, how so?
Besides cartoons, what are other ways animation is used (be specific).
If a traditional animated movie is 1 hour and 1o minuets based on the information you know, how many frames were hand drawn to complete this movie if it was sequenced at 12 frames per second.
Sketchbook activity
List 20 different and descriptive places (real or imaginary) in your sketchbook
Pick your top five
Draw thumbnails for those top five.
Pick your favorite from those five and draw a larger colored sketch
Student Examples of Scene Sketch
Setting the scene supplies
Construction paper
Tempera paint
Brushes
Scissors
No more than 3 Found objects
A shoe box or similar sized box
When I introduce the scene portion of the project I found that this video from the developers of Coraline is very insightful to how much detail and effort goes into the setting of a claymation animation. It also id good for giving ideas on how to create a three dimensional setting.
Creating a Character!
For this portion of the lesson I ask the students to imagine their favorite charter, whether its in a movie, show or cartoon, and I ask them to write about what makes them to relatable and dynamic, why they are so invested in them and their story. Afterwards I show this video from the creators of UP that describes how they created such a personal relationship within one minuet.
Research: There should be research on your character & setting
Design:must address the full figure of your person/animal/monster or thing
Conveys personality: Interesting looks alone do not necessarily make for a good character; its personality is key as well. A character's personality can be revealed through animations, where we see how it reacts to certain situations.
Building a back story: Where it comes from, how it came to exist and any life-changing events it has experienced are going to help back up the solidity of, and subsequent belief in, your character.
Sketchbook activity
After doing the mind map, I ask students to write a short paragraph or two story about their character, this really helps reinforce literacy standards within art integration and allows students to see the usefulness of writing within the realm of art. After they write their story and map I have the students trade with a partner, and the partner draws sketch of the scene and character based on the descriptive language that is given to them. This is always very fun, and leads to a discussion, of "is this how you imagined your character looking? What are the similarities and differences?"
The final notebook activity is drawing a final sketch of the character with two views on a 9x6 piece of paper colored in their notebook before the can move to construction.
Student examples of character sketch
Student Examples: Scenes with the characters
Making the Video
This part of the project took the most time, to make a 30 second animation the students needed to shoot 360 consecutive images to be able to play their animations at 12 frames per second. Most contemporary animation have more frames per second to make moves smoother and more consistent but for the sake of time and learning the process 12 frames sufficed. After almost two weeks of class time we were all able to have a "movie watch" party where we played everyones creations over the projector. Below are some of the final videos that were made!
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