Ms. Moos and Mr. O’Brien had a very interesting project for their junior students in the Building and Design class. Students were asked to use their creativity and imagination to make a stop motion animation movie. A few students in the junior class, as well as the teachers, were interviewed about their thoughts and experience with the whole thing. Read below to see the interviews.
Ms. Moos
What do you hope students will gain from this experience?
“I think it would be an understanding of how much it takes to create moving images. I think that we are constantly consuming videos, moving images and it’s hard to actually wrap our mind around what it takes to create something like this. So, I hope that students develop an idea of what it takes to think about the setting, lights, camera angles, storylines, the preparation as well as the patience it takes. Stop motion is a very specific form of art, but I thought it was interesting to understand how each frame creates a movie.”
What skills do you think students will adapt?
“One skill I think you gain by making something like this is you’re able to analyze what you see when you’re consuming videos or moving images and get a totally different point of view. I hope they develop the skill to analyze what it took to create a moving image or something along the lines and also translating ideas into different mediums. Another skill is creating a storyline and translating it into a moving image. It’s different than just creating the drawings and translate them into a form of media which is the film in this case. I hope that students can communicate their ideas through many platforms like drawing, building, through words, making movies, where others also communicate their ideas so you can consume the methods that they’re using. “
How do you think this project or even your class will help students in the future when applying for college or jobs?
“I think that design and this project helps students by problem-solving. For example, in Raymundo’s case, how am I going to get this person to fly, how do I make sure my hand isn’t in the video, and the standing of the characters, so, you have to problem solve all the time. I think our minds sort of have to adapt. It doesn’t matter whatever you are going to become; you have challenges. If you work as somebody in the supermarket and you’re having troubles with the cash register, you have to problem-solve around that. Hopefully, you gain some confidence from the fact that you can overcome problems because failure is part of the process, and we must learn to be okay with failure. You learn that “okay, this didn’t work and this is really helpful that I know it didn’t work because I know what to do differently.”
Mr. O’Brien
Mr. O’Brien was asked the same questions.
“So, one of our challenges now that we teach remotely and everything is computer-based is the change of setting and because we changed our setting we have to think very deeply about how do we align what we do on the computer with what we design. With film, there’s an element of design, we take a picture, single pictures, and you construct this frame that’s quite that is quite a bit different than actual film making. We try to align our students with enough of the type of educational experiences so that they can develop something that they can move forward with.”
“We are in a world of technology where you have your phones, computers, and it looks like the world is moving from having office spaces to having an office wherever you are. Since you have to do so much on the computer in order to create a slide or presentation, there’s a lot of exposure to up to date technology that benefits us all. There are students who make a Youtube channel and hopefully make money off of that, but it all started here in our classroom when experimenting with stop motion, the stop motion apps, and going over what is a stop motion. We are actually very impressed with the students when all the work was put together.”
“By doing work-based learning we’re creating an environment with real-world application. Stop motion is very popular these days and it’s nice to be part of and there are tons of jobs within the stop motion industry and as far as college goes, you are creating a bigger resume with work that’s associated with building and design. Trouble shooting always comes up. For example, the students who play video games, part of the video game persona is reaching that next difficulty level where you have to put thoughts and ideas together in order to move on. Relating to our work in the classroom, not everything goes as smoothly as you want it to be but that’s important especially when you’re showing your portfolio to colleges, you want to showcase what you know, what you’ve learned, and this is how I applied it to other advocates.”
Raymundo Gomez
What was your process like?
“This process took a lot of patience and it was hard having an idea and then doing a video of it. I had to find a private moment alone so I can be more focused. I would have to say the best part about was the Legos and controlling them. The hardest part about making was hiding a string so my Legos would fall and not having my hand show.”
Why did you decide to do this specific topic for your stop motion?
“I chose the Minecraft topic because it was something I did before as a kid, so, it wasn’t really new to me. The message I want it to have is to have an “open mind” and to show something new.”
How do you think this project affected your knowledge about the design world?
“I noticed there are many possibilities when creating a video, idea, or a motion. It’s really fun if you put your mind to it, it just takes some patience”
What Materials did you use?
“I used Legos and the Stop Motion Studio app.”
Joshua Luna
What was your process like?
“My process of making the stop motion was pretty simple. I took a day to come up with the idea and set up my work area with all the things I would need. Once I had an idea, I made two practice videos about how I can make the figures move and how I can make them do certain actions. I was practicing by making very short videos and watched where I could improve. Finally, I finalized the set and made any needed adjustments, and filmed the video. once I finished filming I edited scenes together, added sound, and submitted.”
Why did you decide to do this specific topic for your stop motion?
“The idea came to me pretty quickly. When we were told about the assignment I instantly knew I wanted to do a fight scene, but I was trying to decide between a fistfight or a sword fight. My brothers and I were playing a Star Wars game one day, and that’s when I decided I wanted to do a lightsaber battle between two people. I enjoy the lightsaber battles in the movies and that’s when the idea came to me to have a duel.”
How do you think this project affected your knowledge about the design world?
“This project made me realize that not everything will be easy and things are time-consuming and frustrating. It also makes me realize how much effort and precision people put into their work because this took lots of effort and time.”
What Materials did you use?
“I used legos mainly for the set. I used the legos to make up the ground and background. Legos were the main thing I used, but the base plate left some open area on the sides so I used paper colored in green to cover that part. The background was white paper too, so it’s consistent and can add more light to the scene. For filming I used my Phone with a stand made with cardboard, the application I used is a free app on iPhone called Stop motion studio which made things easier.”
Annaya Fountaine
What was your process like?
“My process was honestly pretty stressful. I first had to come up with the concept which I was stuck on for a while because I didn’t want to make it too short or too long. Then I also had technical difficulties with the original app my teachers told me to use so I had to switch over to another one called PicPac.”
Why did you decide to do this specific topic for your stop motion?
“I decided to do this specific topic because I got a lot of inspiration from Pinterest. I noticed how they made cool looking stop motions using foods. So, I figured seeing the little amount of resources I have lying around my house, why not put them to use?”
How do you think this project affected your knowledge about the design world?
“Making this project has made me have a greater level of respect for the people that work in fields that require them to make stop motions regularly. The amount of patience you have to have throughout the entire process is difficult to adapt to. But in the end, it’s worth it to see it come together!”
What Materials did you use?
“The materials I used were Stop Motion Studio & Pic Pac, a plate, a bagel, peanut butter, a butter knife, and a brown marker.”
Lawrence Pierre
What was your process like?
“When creating an animation, I like to think of what objects I want to manipulate before I make the plot. In the stop motion, baby bird, I started out with the idea of making birds fly. I didn’t have time to make an extremely detailed story so I at least tried to make an understandable story.”
Why did you decide to do this specific topic for your stop motion?
“I thought it would be very easy to move birds around. All I’d have to do is show the bird flapping its wings whenever it flew.”
How do you think this project affected your knowledge about the design world?
“After doing this project, I now know how much time and effort it takes in making an animation. I spent 15 hours making this project, and I didn’t even do half of what I wanted to do with it.”
What Materials did you use?
“I used only paper in my stop motion and I drew everything in the animation with color pencils. Drawing and cutting it out took about an hour or 2. The software I used was Video Editor which I think is exclusively on Windows PCs but I could have used almost any other video editing app to edit my videos.”
Jason Figueroa
What was your process like?
“The process was time-consuming it took 2 days to repaint the characters, get accessories, and create the backdrops for the specific scenes I needed.”
Why did you decide to do this specific topic for your stop motion?
“I love superheroes and Marvel movies so when I had the chance I decided that I wanted to do this type of stop motion. It was complicated but it was fun.”
How do you think this project affected your knowledge about the design world?
“When I did this project it opened me up to brand new things. I never knew that stop motion was such a big part of the design and filming world. It just baffles me that it’s not used much now or days compared to everything else.”
What Materials did you use?
“When I made this stop motion I used action figures a lot of paint many other types of scraps and pieces from around the house it was complicated but it was fun in the end.”
Extra Comments from the teachers:
Ms. Moos
“What I wanted to add after Mr. O’Brien spoke is the interesting thing about having to transition after Covid and being a very hands-on class and normally we build in this class a lot so that’s the 3rd dimension. The thing about film is that it always has another dimension. For example, a painting is always static. You look at it, and it doesn’t move while it’s on a 2-Dimensional surface. Film has the dimension of time and that’s interesting to me because you guys can’t really work in 3-D like we usually do so you have to think about how to add film analysis to any dimension.”
Mr. O’Brien
“I also wanted to say when creating stop motion videos the actions you make your characters do can’t be recreated. It’s an original creation when you’re positioning each frame and putting all the frames together-its a very raw originality that has a very unique outcome.”
