Clay Animation: Creating Video By Sequencing Images of Clay Characters

"Integrating Technology .." includes several examples of student projects intended to summarize and motivate learning experiences. Clay animation provides one more technique teachers might consider as a way for students to produce short videos. During a typical clay animation project, small groups of students work to create clay characters and use these characters to tell a story or convey a message. The range of possible topics is unlimited -- the characters could be genes and the story could be meiosis, the characters could be historical figures and the story could be the portrayal of a historical event.

Here, we provide an interview with Laurie Tweton, a middle-school health teacher, who has become an advocate for student projects based on clay animation.

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More About the Middle School Project Laurie Describes

The team of teachers Laurie works with is associated with the areas of math, language arts, health, and science. All of these curriculum areas were represented in the work of students. Part of clay animation projects involves the development of the sets within which the clay characters "perform." The sets, characters, and props should be in proper proportion. If the three inch adult character is assumed to represent a 6 foot tall adult, how tall should the clay character representing an average 4th grader be? What would be proper dimensions for the door? Students were expected to perform such calculations. Students were also expected to develop outlines for their projects and to submit written scripts. Developing and evaluating the written products represented the language arts component. The areas of health and science provided the content background for the student projects.

The middle school team approach allowed an important adaptation -- the teachers and students within a team could implement block scheduling. Instead of having to work on the project by using the short time periods typically allocated to language arts, health, etc., the team could schedule a large block of time on specific days and dedicate this block of time to the clay animation project.

Once students have completed their research, developed a story line and script, and created their stage, characters, and props, it is time to create the animation. Laurie describes the process as take a picture, move the characters a little, take another picture, etc. A digital camcorder capable of taking and storing individual pictures was used in this project. Some digital camcorders allow the capture of individual pictures in addition to video. The advantage of this specific approach is that camcorders can store images on tape and a tape can hold a very large number of individual images. It takes students a while to understand the subtleties of the animation process. Laurie tells students to anticipate taking 100-200 images in order to create their short movies, but she also says some experimentation always seems to be necessary. Once the images have been collected, the images are brought into iMovie). IMovie allows the images to be sequenced, but also allows the eventual addition of narration or possibly a musical background and titles. To complete the production process, the components are saved as a Quicktime movie.

Some General Guidelines for Clay Animation Projects

Clay animation is very versatile allowing nearly any aspect of the process (creation of scenes and characters, taking the individual pictures, integrating the pictures to generate a movie) to be accomplished in several ways. Here are some of the key areas to consider:

• Classroom clay animation movies are likely to be brief. Instead of an elaborate plot, these movies are likely to have a central message. What will that message be? The creation of a storyboard -- a series of simple sketches depicting the major action sequences to be animated -- can be a helpful planning activity. Think of developing a storyboard before creating an animation like developing an outline before writing a paper.
• Characters are created from clay because the material is relatively inexpensive and easy to shape. Some animators use special tools to shape the clay. For more elaborate projects, clay is shaped over a wire skeleton called an armature. The wire (sometimes heavy "pipe cleaners") makes it easier and quicker to pose the characters for the many pictures that must be taken. Sources for clay, armature material, character details (e.g., eyes) and other clay animation products can be found on the web (some resources are listed at the end of the chapter). A small industry has sprung up to meet the needs of teachers and hobbyists interested in this method for creating movies.
• The stage, set or background for a clay animation project can be created in many ways. Backgrounds can be painted or created from photographs. Props can be fashioned from clay, made from construction paper, or may be smaller objects such as toys. A lighting source for the set should also be considered.
• The many pictures used to create an animation can be captured in many ways. We have already mentioned the use of a digital camera or a digital camcorder. Another way to capture images is with the type of simple and inexpensive video device used to feed a digital signal directly into the computer. This type of device is typically used in video conferencing (see Chapter 6), has no storage mechanism of its own, and can be accessed by some type of software allowing individual pictures to be captured. These devices and software can be purchased for under $100.
• The many captured images must be combined to create the animation and possibly a video. We feel a video is the most appropriate product for classroom projects, but clay animation can also be used to produce animated GIFs and simple HyperStudio-based animations. We have already described the use of iMovie. Other products (e.g., Spin PhotoObject from Tech4Learning, Quicktime Pro from Apple Computer) can also be used to create movie files.

Additional information about Clay Animation:

Tech4Learning - company providing clay animation materials in kit form, software, books.

San Francisco State University Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers Project description of clay animation basics.

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