Animation Club and iStopMotion

Most of my students don't like to animate.  They all think they are going to like it.  They beg to do it.  Then roughly a 100 frames later, with only 4 seconds of their project done, the begging changes to, "How much longer do we HAVE to do this?"  So, most of my animation lessons are short with quick results.

There are a few hardy souls in every class though who love it.  Who enjoy the detail.  Who love the magic of movement created out of still shots.  Those kids want more.

What to do?

I started an after school club.  I wasn't sure how many students would show up but after about a month, we have a steady group of six with a few curious friends and girlfriends who show up each week. I wanted to do something that was accessible to all levels yet challenging enough to keep them interested.  I usually have to call it quits and throw them out after two hours.

I decided to teach stop motion using Boinx iStopmotion.  It was easy to teach kids the basics and get up and running.  Within minutes, I stood back and they were doing all the work.  So far, we've animated toy figures, chairs and high school students.  The story lines up until recently, tend towards sword fights and battles but I convinced the group to come up with a story we could animate for a film festival held in our building at the end of the year.  I managed to get across that there needed to be a real story with more plot than two guys meet, they fight and someone wins.  There is a fight sequence on the storyboard, but it's part of the story, not the whole story.  I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Boinx iStopMotion is a good choice if you have a Mac and are looking for software to help you create stop motion type animation.  It allows you to onion skin your work.  Has worked fine with the Sony video camera we are using in the club and also a Canon still camera I've used on a few occasions.  It has a variety of features not usually found on inexpensive animation software.  I can easily recommend it.  I think Middle School level kids could easily learn and use it with a minimum of supervision.  Elementary kids would probably need some help with setup, but the interface is simple enough for them to run once it is set up.

[Image: "Kinder Egg toy figure and Lotte Joint Robo figure"; Uploaded on September 8, 2008 by MicroBry; http://www.flickr.com/photos/microbry/2838882763/]

funny: How to cope with Death

Cardboard Animations--followup

After watching the cardboard animation by Sjors Vervoort I did some searching and came up with some other cool animations along the same lines. Roger Wieland has several cardboard animations available online. The first one is called "The Stand Up Comedian".

Take a look at his YouTube Channel for lots of examples of his work including the second one below, a great music video: Whatcha Got.



[Image captured from the video: The Stand Up Comedian]

Space Wolf

Check out this Graham Annable's other animations at his YouTube channel.




[via Miss Cellania]

Cardboard Animation

Here is another bigger than life stopmotion animation. Kind of a followup to Combo that I posted about last week. The artist in this one uses large pieces of cardboard painted with the characters and moves them around a real cityscape. Hard to explain. Trust me, it will make sense when you watch it.


This looks like a very doable project idea for a classroom.




[Image captured from video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18usd0iV3eI&feature=player_embedded]

Combo

Stunning animation done by Blu and David Ellis. Not sure how to really describe this...just watch it! I don't think you will be disappointed.

I'm going to show this to my media kids, give them a video camera, some magic markers and see what they can come up with.

COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.

[Image captured from the video "Combo": http://vimeo.com/6555161]

Funny: Simons Cat--Fly Guy

I used to have a cat that made the same clicking noises when she was hunting.

Onwards: Running animation

Onwards is a great animation by James Jarvis and Richard Kenworthy of a simple character running . Beautiful examples of perspective. How to animate a moving character. Just a wonderful animation. I'll use this as an introduction to animation in my classroom.

I love how this piece captures the internal feel of running. If you've ever been a runner this film will make you want to put on the shoes and head out to the road.

Onwards from AKQA on Vimeo.

Here's a short interview with James Jarvis, one of the animators, where he talks about the project and running.

Part One



Part Two



Part Three



[via Neatorama]

[Image captured from the video Onwards]

It's a Bird

Thought I had blogged about this piece of animation history but when I saw it recently on a Monsters and Rockets post I went looking for it and it was nowhere to be found. I must have shown it to my students and never linked to it online. I will correct that now. Wish I could fix my faulty memory as easily.

It's a Bird was an animated short done by Charles Bowers in 1930. He was one of the early pioneers in film animation and stop motion. From what I can find, the car used in the animation was an actual car, not a model. So, it had to be cut up piece by piece for the effects.

Interesting article/review on Charles Bowers at the DVDJournal. The DVD is called Charley Bowers: The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius out although it is currently out of print (stock). I did a short online search and couldn't find any vendors that had a copy in stock.



[Image captured from video]

A Lovecraft Dream

Wonderful Lovecraft inspired animation. I couldn't gather much from the site or related links. There are some nice effects here using cutouts. I think the ocean waves are a combination of paper and computer animation but not sure?

[Send me a note if anyone has any information on the artists or how they went about creating the film.]



[via Monsters and Rockets]

Stop Motion: Rainbow Bunnies in a crowd

This commercial from 2007 is astounding. It looks like they did the stop motion on the rabbits with little care for the rest of the world. If someone walks or drives through the frame....no problem. If someone steps and flattens a bunny...it pops back up again. (Planned or accidental, either way it's cool.)

The blurb on the YouTube page says, "The stunning new advert from sony, it took 3 weeks, 40 animators and 3.5 tons of clay to make it to make it."

So, head out to the streets Do your stop motion. It could turn out astounding.



Found this "making of" video for the bunny ad just before I posted. There was a more complete list of materials and time:

• 2.5 tonnes of plasticine on set
• 40 animators
• 3 weeks
• 189 2ft bunnies
• 150 1ft cubes
• 10ft x 20ft purple wave
• 30ft giant rabbit.
• 6 cameras.
• 40 animators working through 4 hours generated 4 seconds of footage.
• 40 animators working on the same scene had never been attempted before.
• The 60 second spot will be constructed of approximately 100,000 stills.

[via Monsters and Rockets]

[Image captured from the video]

Space Station Piece by Piece

I was looking for a picture of the space station and ran across this video showing the station as each section is added.

There is a glossary on the side that lets you click on each part to get a brief description.

Cool.

Human Skateboard Animation

I've posted several things from PES before. They do some wonderful stop motion stuff. This particular one will have some of my kids coming up with all kinds of animation plans.

It will probably lead us into a little talk about trying to do this out in the field. All kinds of issues come up. But, if they want to try it....as long as I'm not the skateboard...I say go for it.




Previous links about PES:

• PES Stop Motion Production Company
• Western Spegetti

[via Neatarama]

[Image captured from the video]

Claymation and Comics 2009

I've enjoyed following the progress of this Claymation and Comic summer camp. Some good links to resources. Some great pictures. Lots of ideas if you are planning on doing something like this in your own classroom.

Wish I could remember how I discovered this? I had it set up in my RSS feed and it just started popping up this month. I don't remember putting it there. Must have been a late-nite find.

Anyway, worth a look if you are into this kind of thing.












[Image: Captured from http://claycomics.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/hello-world/]

Suco de Laranja--stop motion

Cool example of stop motion animation. Looking for examples to show my students as they are going to be creating their own in the fall.

do bem™ - Suco de Laranja 100% fruta (MPC de torradas) from do bem on Vimeo.

[via Neatorama]

Evelien Lohbeck Animation

Fun animation from Evelien Lohbeck.

I've watched this several times just trying to figure out how she did some of it.



Noteboek from Evelien Lohbeck on Vimeo.

[via Neatorama]

David Wilson Animation

Amazing animation done by David Wilson for the music video, We Got Time. As a teacher, I was thrilled to see he also created an informational movie on how it was created. I am already planning on using this in the classroom.

It's all done using a device called a praxinoscope. He gives a nice overview of the history of this process and some great information on what happens when he changed the frame rate.

"Making of" video is fascinating.
Music video is brilliant!










[Images all captured from the two videos]

Tribute to Jim Henson

Moving, haunting tribute to Jim Henson.

Wonder if my students will be as touched by this as I am?

Couldn't find much out about this video. Anybody have any background info?

Overtime by Supinfocom: Jim Henson Trib.
Uploaded by Razorbuzz

[Image taken from the video]

The Seed

The Seed is a nifty animation using a combination of of 2D and papercut stop motion by Johnny Kelly of Nexus Productions.

I'll be showing this to my students as an example of what can be done with these two techniques. Lots of stuff happening in this video. Lots of idea generators for kids trying to think up project ideas.

Also I've embedded the Making of the Seed. Show these two together and your kids should be able to come up with lots of concepts on what to do and blueprints on how to do it. Let me mention that my students love the idea of animation but many quickly lose their affection for the technique once they realize the work and time that goes into creating one. Help them keep their dreams realistic. Start them off with small projects so they can see some results.


The Seed from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.


Making of 'The Seed' from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

[Image: Captured from MotionGrapher:http://motionographer.com/2008/11/27/johnny-kellys-seed/]

JibJab animation

I was trying to come up with a way to teach some simple animation techniques to my multimedia kids recently and I remembered the JibJab films. Specifically how they take a picture of a still face and animate the jaw to create the illusion of talking. It has the look of a ventriloquist dummy.

I wanted to show the kids who couldn't draw that they could still create some interesting effects. So, using Fireworks, we created faces with moving jaws and twirling eyes. I refer to these as JibJab animations because a lot of my students are familiar with the their films.

We exported them as animated gifs. The kids can now use them on web pages, movie projects and even Powerpoint presentations. Although I haven't figured out a way to show them in this blog or Google Sites. When you upload a picture to those two online services they are automatically turned into jpegs which breaks the animation. (At least I think this is what is happening......anyone else run into this?)

I can teach this skill to a group of kids (who already know Fireworks) in a class period. The majority of them seem to like it and I have caught them creating other JibJab animations on their own time. Because of student interest, I am working on a unit to use with my video class next year. I think we will attempt a short feature.

[Image captured from "This Land": JibJab: http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals]