Stop Motion

• Stop Motion Photography

Stop Motion Photography

Stop Motion Animation is an excellent way to have students begin to explore the world of movie making. There are several stop motion animation apps and programs that help you begin your journey. Stop motion animation can be very simple to extremely complex. Most students will recognize stop motion animation from movies such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Wallace and Grommit and Coraline. Many of your students may have already explored stop motion animation on their own. There are several stop motion apps for iPad and programs for laptops available. The apps developed for the iPad are quite user friendly. Programs developed for laptops can be a bit more tricky, and better suited for a more advanced user, they are great programs to work with once you have the basics down pat.

Many apps are free, but require in app purchases to be fully operational or you must transfer your captured images to iMovie to do the final editing. Upgraded versions of the “free” apps often have built in editors as is the case with Stop Motion Pro. There are also stop motion apps available for a fee. Stop-Motion Animation Workshop by the National Film Board of Canada:Experience the National Film Board of Canada’s stop-motion animation workshop online.

This web module will teach you how to produce stop-motion animation videos and introduce you to NFB stop-motion animated films. It offers instructional videos and step-by-step lessons. The 7 lessons have been designed for an intermediate (Grade 7–9) art curriculum, however, they can be easily modified to suit other age levels and subject areas.Stop-motion animation can be integrated across the curriculum in subjects as diverse as math, social studies and media literacy.

We recommend introducing stop-motion animation as a learning activity or even as a tool for students to demonstrate their knowledge of a subject area. Why not collaborate with other teachers in your school to create an interdisciplinary learning activity? Stop-Motion in the Classroom: ClaymationWhy Claymation in the classroom?A ball of clay is a ball of possibilities!Students have much experience filling in multiple choice bubbles.Fewer have had the experiences of rolling a ball of clay to create a bubble, a ball, a globe or an atom. What happens when that ball then transforms into a cell, a star, a head of a famous American or an archeological artifact?​Claymation can be a great way to grab student attention for an extended period of time and to engage them collaboratively in a subject you really love or a subject you are searching to make more interesting to them.Creating a stop motion animation is an exciting way to engage students in collaborative learning, careful planning and on the fly problem solving.

The subject of your students' animations can be as diverse as their imaginations or it can be tightly knitted to core subject matter. Regardless of the main theme of your workshop, students will be using many skills and working in teams to arrive at a final animation. They will shift gears moving back and forth between detailed planning and in-the-moment creative decision making.They will need to write, use their math skills, oral skills and people skills (how do you to react when someone accidentally sits on your carefully crafted Red-bellied newt or gets a big pink thumb in the picture frame? ) Take two!Smile and enjoy the process of the collaborative journey as much as the end product.