Introduction

Recap the last lesson. What is stop motion animation? How is it different to the 2D animation we did in the first few lessons?

What are the key things we’re looking for to make a good quality animation? Moving our objects in very small steps, keeping the camera still, keeping hands out of the way when capturing frames and working well as a team.

In the next couple of lessons the children will be continuing to work on stop motion animation, but introducing toy figures in the process. Any kind of figure that is fairly small and can stand up on its own will work fine. LEGO minifigs, Playmobil, animal figures are all good.

Set up the tablets or webcams as described in the last lesson.

 

Stop motion challenge - Introducing figures

You can start by keeping things fairly simple and sticking to just one or two figures. Practice making them move around smoothly, chasing each other or doing a dance where they move in a sequence together. It's worth pointing out that figures can stand still at times. You can capture frames of one or both of them being still in a position at times.

Making use of whiteboards or paper and pens with the figures can be a nice way to get started (don’t forget to stick the boards down with Blu-Tack!).

Ask them to practise their stop motion animation skills by trying these three challenges:

1. Make a character walk into the scene, circle around, come close to the camera and then leave the scene.
2. Make one character chase another around the scene, moving in lots of different directions.
3. Make two characters appear from different places, do a dance routine together in the middle of the screen (this can just be repeated movements of left, right, forwards, backwards) and then leave the scene.

They should save each finished animation as they go.

 

Editing Frames

It's very likely by now that someone in the class will have produced an animation that contains at least one hand, arm etc that shouldn’t be in the frame. Do not fear! These are quite easy to remove and can all be done at the end. This stops them from picking up and moving their camera while they are still working.

 

Deleting frames in iMotion

First, stop capturing frames by double tapping the stop button.

This takes you to the playback screen. Use the forward and backward arrows to move through the animation one frame at a time until you find a frame with an offending body part in it.

 

 

Then delete the frame by tapping the last button on the right.

 

 

It will check so you don’t delete things by accident. Tap the same button again to confirm the deletion.

 

 

If you want to continue with an animation you have stopped, you can tap the camera button at the top of the screen. You’ll then see an option to resume (make sure you are on manual capture still)

 

 

You may also want to share a couple of useful tools iMotion has. When capturing your animation, if you press display you get two options at the top of the screen.

 

 

The first adds a shadow of your last frame when you press capture, this lets you see where things were last time you captured a frame. This is great if you knock something over by accident and need to put it back where it was, or if they move the camera. It can also be really helpful to show the students how far they are moving things each time, especially if they are struggling to keep to small steps!

 

 

 

The second tool adds a grid to your screen. This can be useful for lining up objects, finding the centre, helping with positioning of your camera and tracking how far to move things.

 

Deleting frames in 2Animate

Simply select the frame to be deleted from the timeline at the top of the screen and press the delete frame button.

 

 

Plenary

Ask them to watch back one of their finished animations from the lesson. Was the animation smooth? Did you move your characters in small steps? Could anything have been improved?

Also ask the students, did you work well as a team? Did everyone get a chance to do all the different jobs? Did you set up your equipment well at the beginning? Could you do this again on your own next week?  

If possible, view some of their finished animations as a class and ask them for feedback.

What are the most important things to remember when doing stop-motion animation? Keep everything still apart from the characters, move them in very small steps, be patient, take your time and be very careful.