Wow! This movie was a great learning experience for my students and I. The whole concept from start to finish was completely their idea. Claymation is an amazing art form! I would totally do this again with a future class.
We began this adventure with a very solid storyboard and script. In fact, I was most impressed with my students' storyboarding and script writing. They came up with some great one liners. Their favorite was the last line, "Remember, Alligreater always thinks with his stomach." My students crack me up!
Creating our clay creature turned out being a great art lesson in sculpting. Each student created their own alligator. We studied the shape of a real alligator in order to come up with a good idea of the shapes we needed. We began with a pipe cleaner to create a skeleton. We filled out the skeleton using aluminum foil. At this point we voted for the best sculpture. The winning sculptor finished off their alligator using clay animation clay. I happen to think it turned out great!
The film crew learned quite a bit about claymation and potential claymation problems. They learned that next time they should laminate their set and be certain that it is secured to the table. If we had laminated the pond it would have prevented the clay from staining the pond. The kids found it pretty funny that after Alligreater ate the number 21, it left red marks on his teeth. They also learned the importance of keeping the camera still while taking the pictures. If they pressed too hard on the camera it caused a shaking effect.
The editors had a whole new experience. They had to export the photos from iphoto into imovie for the claymation portion of the movie. Our final movie uses about 200 still images all set to appear for 0.2 seconds. The students had to mess around with the voice over and the images in order to make sure Alligreater's mouth opened and closed at the right moment. My editing crew did an amazing job with this task.
My students think this happens to be their best movie this year. After the disappointment of the iVIE awards (and they took it hard) this was a great way to learn to get right back in the saddle and create something new and even more exciting. I am pretty proud of this class and what a memorable experience it has been to create all these movies with them this year.
Thank you to Project Live for supporting movie-making in the classroom. It has changed the lives of each and every student in my classroom this year.
Debbie Ward
May 30, 2010 4:46 PM
That was absolutely amazing! Everyone obviously put a great deal of work into making this video, I'm sure you ARE very proud of them. Now that you've so successfully navigated the area of claymation, I'll be looking to you for advice for next year!
Diane Dewindt
May 31, 2010 5:55 PM
Excellent use of claymation. Alligreater does a fine job of showing "greater than". I still have a few students that have trouble with which way to use the "greater than" and "less than" signs. Perhaps this will help! I'll start early next year with clay figures. It looks like fun. How much time was actually spent building figures and filming movement? (Time management question). 200 stills, yikes??! Great job!
melissaandrews
Jun 1, 2010 9:41 AM
OMG!!! I loved the Alligator! The claymation was fantastic! Your kids are the greatest little actors and actresses, too! What an amazing job your class did. You should be very proud of them!
lizfish
Jun 2, 2010 12:53 PM
Super Cute! The alligator was great- perfect for claymation. Very visual and great acting!
Elvi Mackintosh
Jun 6, 2010 6:08 PM
Wow, what a superb and complex project! I agree with Liz, the alligator was perfect for claymation. Looking forward to showing your video to my students!
Frank Maggi
Jun 7, 2010 2:01 PM
Fantastic animation. I really liked how you carried into the "real" world on the girl's paper. Your live actors weren't too shabby either. Nicely done.