When I say 10 minutes, you can literally make a stop motion animation in 10 minutes, all you need is a phone or a tablet.
Although it is fast, this activity entertained Bear for the whole day today.
What is stop motion animation? It is a film making technic, that makes objects appear to move on their own. To make it work, you place an object in front of the camera, snap a photo. Move it again, snap another photo and repeat as many times as you wish. You can create a film from 20 to hundreds of photos. When you play back the photos rapidly, it seems that the objects move fluently across the screen... or if you make the objects make slightly bigger moves in between two snaps, the movement is less fluid, (think of Wallace and Gromit) but it is more interesting and sweet.
So I downloaded an app, using the "Stop Motion" app, but there is plenty to choose from if you search by the expression stop motion. The app was straightforward, intuitive for a kid. Previous evening I did a test run, also to make Bear enthusiatic about the project.
As I said, all we needed was the phone. Did not have a small tripod, but the glass jar, which is serving daily as a pencil holder, made a perfect job. In 10 minutes we did our first simple film together and with a little practice we finished the day with longer, more sophisticated stuff. After the second or third trial, Bear was able to develop storyline or shooting the film on his own.
What little Bear learnt in one day beside having great time?
- Learnt to plan and develop a "storyline" before starting filmmaking
- He learnt how things appear different in the camera from reality: the object closer to it appear larger etc.
- He learnt about depth of field ( of course not the expression, but he experienced how certain objects are in focus, others are not and he needs to choose for each frame what is in focus)
- He learnt about light as well, when he had the opportunity to recognise how much nicer the film when it is not shot facing direct light.
He learnt how much fun you can have digging out old toys and creating something new with them.
Finally and most importantly he learnt the pride, joy and excitement of creating something new.
So, here are two of the (many) films we have created today, a Lego Ninjago and a Lego Frozen film.
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