Presenting to the class

As part of one of my teaching courses students were asked to give a 10 minute presentation. The criteria was broad. We simply had to present on anything that would be useful to preservice visual arts teachers. I chose to give a brief tutorial on stop motion animation in the classroom. We talked about the ways animation could be linked into the syllabus and curriculum, the relevance this medium had to students' lives and the positive effects on motivation and student engagement. I was able to get some samples of student work from a year 8 class at Newcastle High. In the space of six weeks they were able to create relatively successful claymation vids (about 2 minutes in length) with original sets, characters and narratives. To finish the presentation I gave a quick demo of how to edit in Windows Movie Maker. This is super freakin easy. I feel that demonstrating in this program showed just how achievable 4D can be in the highschool classroom.

FIRST STOP MOTION!! ... sorry if the caps made it sound exciting..it's not :)

My first stop motion experience. I set up a cam in front of a whiteboard and simply started to draw and let things evolve. No story line or plot... just mucking around getting a feel for this shiz. This one was pieced together using windows movie maker..real simple like.



Doing this gave me a headache and the final result did nothing to alleviate the pain... nevertheless you gotta start somewhere.

Stuff I've been looking at (continued)

I would have attached this to the last post but the post editor is being a little bit of a pain. So this post just follows from the last...

I went to see artexpress on the weekend at the gallerty of NSW. I also saw the archibald prize and its side shows. It was all very good, but as usual artexpress blew my mind!!
I saw heaps more 4D stuff this year than I have in the past. In the show I saw there were nine 4D works! Of the nine, one was a stopmotion animation using paper, pens, pencils and a desk as a site for animation. It was quite cool and from memory was titled 'homework'. Another stop motion I saw was done with lights, shot at night.. on youtube this approach is being labelled as 'light graffiti'... its pretty cool. check this out..



Another I saw the other day was done with salt. This could be replicated with sand, dirt, flour, etc.



woopwoop

Stuff I've been looking at (and enjoying)...different ways to spend alot of time animating

As I'm at square one I have the opportunity to just browse and see what's out there before I knuckle down and undertake the mammoth effort of repetition that is animation.
There's an abundance of really cool stuff on the open web...the vids below show a variety of approaches to animation. They vary in the materials and techniques used, but I imagine the editing process is quite similar and could be done through iMovie or something of that nature. Anyway, this is what I have been looking at to get ideas:

Using a whiteboard:


Using a wooden figure...you see lots of stuff created with a range of maneuverable figures/toys. Anything from lego to barbie doll.


This one stood out a bit for me; using what could be a singular material artwork in itself as a background site for animation. 

Which way to go?

Right in the beginning I went to a couple animation/film festivals and got all inspired to do something stunning....


















With no real understanding or appreciation of the complexity of animation against the short window of time that is a 14 week semester I went on to dreamily develop this character. He was drawn with a super tiny and old mouse-pencil-pad thingy (you know the ones I'm talking about) through CS2. I do like to draw and I'm thinking I would like to enlist drawing as a part of my animation (that seems like an obvious statement, but of course there are so many ways to 'animate' without drawing)... So I guess as I come back to 'square one' I have the opportunity to reevaluate exactly how I want to do this.

First post: Where's my head at?

(second attempt at first post...why the bleepbleep can't you cut and past into your posts from word)
Anyways... this blog is going to serve as a 'headspace' i suppose, for the development of my first screen animation project. Since it is my first it is going to most likely be short, cheap, simple and prone to reactions and comments such as 'crap, that is so crap'... ahh, let me not get too pessimistic so soon, there's still the next ten weeks for that!!

Yep, I have about ten weeks, and as of today I am at square one, back to the drawing board as they say. In the initial weeks of semester I was struck by an idea that I pretty much became obsessed with immediately. After developing and refining my initial idea I started to plan. Through the stages of planning my initial idea came unstuck. The major reasons were lack of access to appropriate camera lenses and physical constraints...I'm not elaborating on the idea cause one day when I get a super wide angle lens (or maybe a fisheye) for an upgraded digi (my DSLR is pretty stoneage) I might just pull it of...so it can stay in the depths of my brain for the time being.

I'm pretty dead-set on doing a stop motion animation using a still camera. I figure this would be the most useful approach for me to acquaint myself with in the short space of this course. I figure animation in a public school setting is going to rest heavily on stop motion strategies. This isn't a bad thing at all. For the past couple years I've been casually observing how cool stop motion animation can really be. Without a doubt I would have to say BLU's work with stop motion has been the most awe inspiring stuff I have seen to date and probably where my initial interests in this type of animation began. BLU's work can be seen at www.blublu.org/  . This is the first video I saw of his a year or two back...I'm aware that millions of people have seen this..however, if you haven't I strongly suggest you hit play, sit back, and let your jaw hit the floor. Pretty amazing stuff...




Isn't it just the coooolest!?!? The sheer scale of this project puts it in a league that I would not even ever dream my animations will ever fall into. I could not comprehend the work that goes into a production like this. However, I really like BLUs drawing style, simple, effective and narrative based but in a semi non-linear way.. I mean really when you watch this stuff from start to finish it has an underlying story to tell, but, you can pretty much grasp the themes and enjoy the film at which ever point you start to watch it. I've noticed this with alot of stop motion I've been watching through the video sharing toobs...many of them do not have a distinct start and finish. I'm kinda interested in the idea of looping...hold on!! I'm getting ahead of myself. first things first: WHAT AM I GOING TO USE TO CREATE THE ANIMATION? (notepads, flash, claymotion, whiteboards etc..) ....