Nora Heschuk - Cool! Claymation! Stop Motion Animation

Agenda The Four Foundation Skill Areas Explanation & Samples of Stop Motion Animation Software: –Monkey Jam –Movie Maker –Audacity Logistics of creating claymation projects Hands-on Debriefing & Clean-Up

The Four Foundation Skill Areas: The four foundation skill areas are: literacy and communication problem solving human relations technology The foundation skill areas are required from Kindergarten to Grade 12. They are fundamental in both teaching and learning and should be part of instruction in every subject area.foundation skill areas -Manitoba Education, Citizenship & Youth

Stop Motion Animation “Crafting the World of Coraline” “What is stop motion animation anyway?” **This site has some really good tips for creating stop motion animation projects.“What is stop motion animation anyway?” Storyboard Template Samples –TeacherTube (search: “claymation”)TeacherTube –Claymation Website – descriptions & samplesClaymation Website –The Three Little Pigs (from YouTube)The Three Little Pigs –French: Cendrillon, L’Arbre Ungali –Interesting “Stop-Motion” Animation ExamplesInteresting “Stop-Motion” Animation Examples

Monkey Jam Tutorial Important Reminders: –Pay attention to where your image folder is (ie: where Monkey Jam is storing the images for your stop motion animation) –Save your Monkey Jam file in the same place –Give layers a unique & meaningful name because images will be named the same way. (Helps to keep organized and to avoid overwriting files.)

Helpful Hints When making characters “talk”, simply have mouth open & close one or two times and then duplicate those frames. Create natural movements (ex: legs move as a character walks or runs across the frame) Remove undesirable frames before you create the.avi movie, if possible **Clean up your clay!

Movie Maker Once you have exported the Monkey Jam file as an.avi movie, you can import the video (and images) into Movie Maker. Tutorial – starting Movie Maker, adding effects and audioTutorial Save your new Movie Maker file into the same folder as the rest of your project.

Movie Maker Tips Only video & images that are in the timeline are actually in your video Slow down or speed up action using the video effects (right click on the video in the timeline and select > Effects > Speed up double or slow down half) To adjust only a portion of the clip, split the clip before your apply the effects. Narrate the timeline if you don’t need any additional sound effects

Audacity – Audio Editing (lame encoder for making MP3 files) Use Audacity if you want to add additional sound effects or alter voices Export the sound file to be used in the video (again, make sure that it is being saved in the project folder!) In Movie Maker, import the sound file into collections, then drag it below the video on the timeline.

Finishing Your Project In Movie Maker, finish your movie by adding a title & credits, then go to: –Finish Movie –Save to my computer (This time you don’t have to save it in the project folder, however, do pay attention to where you are saving it!)

Thank you! If you have questions or videos that you would like to share, I would love to hear from you! –My classroom website is at: –My is: I am nheschuk on Delicious and Diigo.