Workshop: Home Crafted Animation
What is your favourite Disney film? ‘The Lion King’, perhaps? Maybe ‘Inside Out’ or even ‘Soul’. These films are animations, meaning that all the stationary characters and figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. But did you know that generally, the average time to produce an animation of around 60-90 seconds is over 6 weeks!
The standard timeline of the animation process can generally be broken down into a number of stages:
- Briefing
- Brainstorming
- Script Writing
- Concept Art
- Storyboard
- Illustration
- Animation Design
- Sound Design
Think about the details that went into this one shot from 'Toy Story 2' (1999)
Still a bit confused? Take a look this short clip below to see how professional animators use clay to create classics like “Wallace & Gromit” and “Chicken Run”.
Now its your turn! In this workshop, it is your chance to claim creative freedom and create your own animation from the comfort of your own home!
All you need is: pens, paper, scissors and a phone or tablet with the free ‘Stop Motion Studio’ app! Using just these tools, and bit of imagination, you have the opportunity to create your very own stop-motion animation!
Instructions:
- Download the ‘Stop Motion Studio’ onto your device from the appropriate app store.
- Use the story board in the worksheet or draw out your own to plan out what will happen in your animation. Use the example story board below as a guide for your own.
- Using pens and paper, design and draw the characters for your animation. Once you are happy with the designs, use the scissors to cut them out.
- Following the story board you designed, place your paper characters in particular locations, use the ‘frame-by-frame’ editor to easily capture your first image.
- As you slowly move the paper character, capture these movements by using the ‘frame-by-frame’ editor once again. You are likely to need lots more images than you expected but this is the best way to capture the tiniest of movements.
Once you are happy with the photos you have taken, the app will automatically combine these images together and play your very own homemade stop motion film!
Take a look and review how you have done... is there anything you would do differently? Share your animation with friends and family and see if you can come up with the brand new animated blockbuster!
Make sure you take time to reflect on and record the skills you've used and learnt in today's activity!