Creating GIFS through Optical Illusions and Movement
Progressive Arts Alliance collaborates with the Cuyahoga County Public Library to provide week-long summer programs around a unified topic. This summer, we developed an Op Art curriculum (the art of optical illusion). Earlier this year we built a cohort of Artist-Educators with various specialties. This has resulted in a fantastic team of diverse professionals. This meant that we had many options when designing the summer programs.
The camp was developed to have different activities/mediums every day of the week all built on the foundation of knowledge that optical illusions trick the eye through a variety of methods. We used drawing, dance, performance, photography, and animation to demonstrate this point. Students also had two days of stop motion animation training and made a variety of short GIFs. As the resident animator, this aspect was obviously the most exciting for me.
Animation, by definition, can be considered an optical illusion since it is a series of still images that create the illusion of movement. Building off of former lessons earlier in the week, campers had the freedom to make whatever they wanted as long as it was appropriate. Students were placed into small groups and started by using a stop motion setup and common objects (Play-Doh, toys, clay, etc.).
Some animations were a little weird and more entertaining than others, but at the end of the day the projects and ideas were astounding. We purposefully created an environment where students could work through the creative process and express their own ideas. I thought it was a great!
During the last day of camp we expanded the ideas of stop motion illusions even further. Campers learned about pixilation and the practice of using the human body as a means (or puppet) for stop motion animation. We altered the frame used as a shadow screen for the dance and movement aspect of camp, used as a set piece, and a very elaborate tripod for shooting. After that we mounted an iPad at the top of the tripod and used a bluetooth shutter remote to be able to shoot their GIFS from above.
The students created GIFS using themselves and props on top of large chalkboards that covered the ground. This became really interesting as the kids were tasked with storyboarding and planning out their ideas ahead of time since each group only got 20 minutes to shoot on the set. There was a lot of creative problem solving done by the kids to get their ideas to work, but at the end results were fantastic. They had a blast!
We hope to use this set creation and pixilation stop motion process in future arts-integration residencies.
