Outer Space Shark

Last summer,  I had a wonderful opportunity to make an animation with some kids ages 5- 10.  They were bored and needed a fun project to do so I taught some basic principles of animation.  We had a lot of fun watching animated examples of these principles and we learned so much.  After we learned some of the basics, we put what we learned to use and made a short stop motion film.

The supplies we used were:

• foam core board (2' x 3' is good)
• colored cardstock paper
• markers
• colored pencils
• scissors
• double-sided tape
• smart phone

Most of the supplies we used were found at the Dollar Store.  We also used an app called Stop Motion on an iPhone to capture the film.  The app is free so need to worry about that.

I decided to teach the kids about using a pipeline to make the work go by quickly and smoothly.  On day one, we started with the pre-production work.  We wrote the script as a class and discussed which elements we wanted to keep or discard.  If your kids are in middle school or higher, I would recommend allowing them to make a storyboard.  You can either have them make the storyboard as a class or in groups.  

After we made the screenplay, we started making the background, props and characters using the colored cardstock.  I let them use their choice of markers or colored pencils each student was assigned a particular element to draw.  One student drew the stars, another made planets, another made a spaceship and so on.  We finished this in about two days since everyone was working together.  

After the pre-production work was finished, we moved onto production.  This was the really fun part for the kids because they had the chance to animate.  I briefly demonstrated how they were to capture the motions and how it would look on the software.  We then elected the oldest students to man the camera while the younger students animated the characters and props.  This is where the double-sided tape comes in handy.  It allows the students to move the elements without damaging the set.  As we animated, we read off the script what the next scene should be.  

I was pretty hands off with the the production because I wanted them to look back and remember that this was their work.  After they finished the production, we watched some more stop motion examples.  I did the post-production work simply because it was too advanced for this group of students.  I used After Effects to make sure the frames were not upside down and to stabilize the shaky cam.  If you don't know how or don't have access to After Effects, I would recommend using a tripod to hold the phone and keeping the orientation locked, so frames do not get flipped around and this will help prevent shaky cam.  Also there are plenty of free editing software out there like, Lightworks or apps like iMovie. I added a title and some music from NewGrounds just to jazz up their work.  NewGrounds has plenty of free music if you don't want to make your own.  Just make sure you credit the artist.

So here is the video that these precious kiddos made:

P.S. I put this video on my other blog: aamarisart.blogspot.com earlier on and gave more insight on how I felt and how the kids felt during this process.  This blog is used to show how I taught this art project and others like it.