Life is a cartoon
There are many ways to do animation and many reasons to do it. A few are hand draw, computer generated, and claymation. As for reason it could be for fun, artistic expression, or education. I took my first dive in to animation the semester and the whole process was new to me. So now what process did I use and what were the benefits of this class.
The first thing we did was flip book animation. Which is exactly as it sounds like you use some kind of flip able paper like a stack of sticky notes and draw a ball bouncing. Now you could draw it going all over the page and that would be good practice for squash and stretch but if you draw it just bouncing up a down you can add an additional layer of realism. You draw two balls bouncing at different speeds and heights then when you “play back” your drawing you get the illusion of weight. This happens because the ball that bounces slower and lower is being compared to the faster and higher ball next to it.
The final project we have in the class is a claymation interview of ourselves. The first thing that is done is the interview where the teacher records us both video and audio. After that we had to decide how we wanted to look for our interview with it being animation the choices are only limited to your imagination but for class we had to choose between realistic, cartoon, and an animal. Surprisingly a majority of the class went with animal, me included. After you know what you are going to look like the its time to make it.
There are many colors to choose from.
Although if you don’t like any of them then you can just make your own. With a fondue pot. Now a quick warning just because clay goes into a fondue pot does not mean it became edible so don’t eat it please.
Now though it may be tempting to just throw colors in and see what comes out there is a limited supply of clay so you should see mixing color like a recipe. All you need to do is keep track of how much of each color you add. You should as start with small amounts until you find the color you like as long as you keep the same proportions you can get the sane color whether mix small or large amounts of clay. Also only create as much as you need to make sure you do not waste any clay. Be sure to label and store you clay so you can find it again and so on one else uses it.
Now let us move on to molding your clay. There is no way to tell exact steps here because everyone will be making something different but there are tips many will find useful. Look around and check what tools and resources you have they could be useful for patterns or for outlining what you want the clay to look like. In class we call them dentist tools because that exactly what they look like.
Also going back to cooking again parchment paper is excellent when your rolling out your clay. Then you can cut out the shape you want while keeping the parchment paper on. This saves both mess on the table and it makes it, so your clay cut out won’t get stuck to every surface you put it on. This is also useful for dark colors now when it touches a lighter color it won’t leave a mark. Now this animation is going to be talking so it will need different and replaceable mouths hence the parchment paper. You can find different types of mouths online and then decide which fits your character best. One other thing that will make it feel more realistic is to have your character blink so have different sets of eyes.
Now for actually animating your interview. In our class we use a program called dragon frame.
You do not need any fancy program you just need to get your pictures to play in succession how ever you can. All the set up in the lab is, is a camera and computer.
You do not need a fancy camera either you could use your phone to take every photo. The only thing is you will want your camera to be stuck in place not shifting around each shot. Now the original audio and video interview will be helpful. As you animate you can look at that and see how your lips look so you know what mouth to use. This also works for your blinks you can just put them in where they are during the original. If you feel like there are too many then you can just take some out.
Now why bother doing this when you can just take a video in real life much easier. One is that this can be great for team building exercise that can shared by all ages. One reason is that its clay one of the classic childhood toys that everyone loves. But if you want a more scientific reason you can find it at www.tandfonline.com where they state “Allport’s social-contact theory suggests that prejudice can be reduced among diverse groups when they are brought into contact with one another in an environment void of competition and designed to promote equal status, common goals, and authority sanctioning.” To simplify they can bond because there is no competition, no one is the boss, and everyone is working towards the same goal. To summarize their experiment, they took grade schoolers and paired them up with adults 60 and older to see how they would interact with one another and it went according to Allport’s social-contract theory.
Then there is the fifth-grade teacher how uses Claymation as an alternative and creative way to teach lessons. The teacher, Mary Beth Kiser, states that “The claymation project incorporates content as well as skill development. Students learn about exploration; practice research skills; and write, revise and edit a script. Finally, they incorporate both the acquired content and skills while working as a team to produce a video.” This gives students a chance to show creativity in normally dull schoolwork and can excite them to learn more.
Claymation can also be used to represent ideas in a new way like Johnson, Thomas W did in his paper about “Armed with clay and a camera, Nathalie Djurberg propels the viewer into a visceral and primitive world of human destructiveness and desire. It’s the Mother hones in on the effects of unchecked infantile probing, prodding, and invasion on the maternal body. Melanie Klein’s ideas are germane in considering this work, in particular the idea of the depressive position struggle (in this case for both the viewer and the artist) around reparation for what is wrought by destructive impulses.”
