Students are lending their hand to a different type of film making over the last two weeks of the term, after finishing their awesome remakes of famous TV titles.
Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back.
Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints (puppet animation) or clay figures (claymation) are most commonly used. Our students have shown a strong preference for playing with LEGO and Hot Wheels cars for their stop motion set-ups. One student is also doing stop motion in Google Slides using digital animations.
Puppets, models or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation. Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixilation. Stop motion of flat materials such as paper, fabrics or photographs is usually called cutout animation.
I look forward to seeing what they come up with and previewing their completed stop motion sequences on the big screen in the Drama room at the end of next week! It has been fabulous to see our rangatahi being really creative, but also strengthening their use of collaborative, communication, and critical thinking skills. Ka pai tō mahi, Year 10 Film!