Stop Motion Animation

5th grade
Artistic Thinking
Kelsi Brosnahan

Stop Now add your motion

Rational

Why is this important to teach?

o
Students will learn about sculpture and three-dimensional forms. It is important for students to be
taught how to use the tools that are used for stop motion filming because they will be learning to use
tools that we will use in everyday life. They will learn how to properly use the camera to capture their
images and a computer to create their short.
What do you hope to accomplish?
o
Students will be able to identify three-dimensional forms, constructively use technology to extend their
artwork, and be able to problem solve, as well as working collaboratively.

Stop Motion is a cinematic process, or technique used to

makes static objects appear as if they were moving. This
technique is commonly used in claymation and puppetbased animation.

Essential Questions

Students will discover and investigate how to make a stop-motion film using threedimensional techniques.
What is going to be your plan of action for your three-dimensionals figures stop-motion film?
What action is our figure going to be performing?
What is the story that you and your partner are creating for the collaborative film?
How are you going to show the action of your figure? What angle is going to be the most
dynamic angle?
Name the three artist that we discussed.
What is a stop-motion film?
How long does it take to create a fully animate stop-motion film?
What difficulties did you run into that you think Calder, Burton, and Park might have also
experienced?
What went well? What did not go well?
What could you do differently to improve your work?
What would you change to make this project better?

Objectives

Students will be able to create a three-dimensional figure.

Students will be able to problem solve in their artistic process.
Students will know what three-dimensional forms are.
Students will know what stop-motion is.
Students will complete a storyboard of their figures stop-motion clip.
Students will decide on the best direction for their clips through play
and experimentation.
Students will create a stop-motion clip with with their threedimensional figure.
Students will give critical feedback on each other's films.

Day 1
Activity: Introduce kinetic and stop-motion art.
What is kinetic and stop-motion? (Day 1)
Objective: Students will know what kinetic and stop-motion art is.

Day 1
Who is Alexander Calder?
Students will be introduced to the artist Alexander
Calder. We will look at his kinetic art piece called
The Circus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=t6jwnu8Izy0
We will then discuss how Calder uses many
different parts of wire sculptures to create a large
kinetic sculpture that is interactive. We will look at
how adding movement adds depth to Calders
artwork.

Day 1
Who is Tim Burton?
Students will then be introduced to the
artist Tim Burton. We will look a few
different clips of his more popular stopmotion movies. Nightmare Before
Christmas, Frankenweenie, Vincent, The
Corpse Bride

Day 1
Students will then be asked a few questions that they can discuss with their color groups.
What is stop-motion? How is it made?
How do you think the characters were made? How are they similar and how are they
different to Calder's kinetic art pieces?
Discuss how long you believe it took for a full film like Burtons. (According to records on
Nightmare Before Christmas it took a full week to film just one minute of the film,
altogether the film took 3 years to fully complete.)
Why would it take so long to create the shot?
For the rest of the time students will use their chromebooks to research other stopmotion artist. They compile a list of other stop-motion artist. Students will use kidrex
search engine to find other artist. They will then be allowed to use youtube to find videos
of the artist's work.

Day 2-3
Activity: Planning Storyboard (Day 2-3)
Objective: Students will complete a
storyboard
I can create a series of images that
represent the actions that my threedimensional figure will be performing.

Day 2-3
Students will talk about what actions their figures could possibly do. What is
the story or meaning that you are trying to convie in your stop-motion clip?
Students will sketch their storyboard. They will take pictures of their
storyboard and upload them on their planning guide that I have shared with
them on google drive.

Day 4-5
Activity: Create three-dimensional figure (Day 4-5)
Objective: Students will be able to create a threedimensional wire figure along with a costume that
fits the action that will be going into the stopmotion clip.
Introduction: I will show the students a few
examples of three-dimensional wire figures with
costumes.

Day 4-5
Students will then use this guide to
create a wire figure. This is made into
a giant poster that will be displayed
during the entire project for students
to refer back to.

Day 6-7
Activity: Photographing Figure Actions (Day 6-7)
Objective: Students will take several photographs of their finished wire figure.
Introduction: I will show the students my exemplar for their stop motion
animation.
http://gifmaker.me/PlayVideoAnimation.php?folder=20151210206AsgkHuEmsGlCCDEMaxqbq&file=output_kCrSHV.mp4

Day 6-7
Each color group will be given a camera along with
their black backdrop. Together they will take turns
capturing their figures. There should be several
photos for each student due to the fact that they
need to photograph the progression of the slight
moves of the action. Each time the photo is taken
it needs to be take from the same angle.
Towards the end of the class we will discuss what
challenges we are facing while trying to capture
the figures photographs. What can we do
differently to improve our photos?

Day 8
Activity: Stop-motion Video (Day 8)
Objective: Students will create a stop-motion clip
Students will upload their photographs to their chromebooks.
Students will then use one of the following websites to create their stopmotion clip.
http://www.gifpal.com/
https://imgflip.com/images-to-gif
https://giphy.com/create/gifmaker

Day 9
Activity: Share stop-motion clips and
critic (Day 9)
Objective: students will give feedback
on their peers stop-motion clips
Now that the students have create
their final clip they will share their clip
with their peers.

Day 9
On their computer they will have their stop-motion clip (or GIF) pulled up on
their computers. Students will walk around the room view each clip.
At each computer the students will have two windows open. One with the
stop-motion clip and the other with a blank google doc labeled Stop-motion
Peer Review. Students will rotate around and watch the stop-motion clip and
then leave a comment on the google doc.

Day 10
Conclusion (Day 10)
Activity: Share stop-motion clip digitally
Objective: Decide as a class where the students stopmotion clips will be shared.

Assessments

Formative

What did you like about this project? What would you change if you could do this again?

Give some advice for the next class that does this project. Turn in rubric with all questions
answered.
Pre-Assessment

Students will have to present their pre-thinking process in their storyboard to the teacher
before moving on to the final project.
Summative Assessments

Students will fill out a self-assessment on themselves using the rubric. Students will grade
themselves on their process and their final product along with turning in their storyboard
process. Students success will be reflected by completing the self assessment rubric along
with their storyboard and the final stop-motion clip.

Resources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6jwnu8Izy0 - Alexander Calder The Circus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPblZa10_Pk - Tim Burton Nightmare before Christmas
Whats This
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29vIJQohUWE - Tim Burton Frankenweenie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4p9WKnDQzQ - Tim Burton Vincent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxQcBKUPm8o - Tim Burton The Corpse Bride
http://www.gifpal.com/
https://imgflip.com/images-to-gif
https://giphy.com/create/gifmaker
http://gifmaker.me/PlayVideoAnimation.php?
folder=20151210206AsgkHuEmsGlCCDEMaxqbq&file=output_kCrSHV.mp4 - My animation
https://docs.google.
com/document/d/1pAnZl9e15GD2qloltk_iZGZZGwwxULTUbpG9iMzJOzs/edit - Stop-moton
rubric