I started drafting this reflection last week but then left to go backpacking before I finished so this week I'll be posting two reflections.
It took hours upon hours to design the set with my wife and daughter and it's still not complete. It took 230 painstakingly taken photographs. It took plenty of research and web inspiration. And then end result? A shaky 26 second stop motion video parodying Tchaikovsky's and The Nutcracker's Act II: III. Divertissement: VI. Mother Gigogne. My instincts tell me to wait until I've made a more polished product before sharing my videos. Yet my evolving thoughts on education remind me that "done is better than perfect" and that it's crucial to share the sloppy process as well as an eventual polished (I hope) finished product. So this week for my 20Time project I continued to seek inspiration from others who have also created stop motion animation. I saw dancing fruit and clay which inspired me to take on dancing as well. I learned that although there are workarounds with any program, Final Cut Pro might not be the best program to use due to its lack of an "onion skin" feature. I also continued to learn more about lighting and how it's key to have proper and consistent lighting so that your setting and action look good but also so to be able to use a faster shutter speed. When you're taking 230 or more photos or more, a split second in shutter speed can really make a difference in the cumulative amount of time in a project. My final lesson this week was to not use stop motion photography when I'm not filming movement. In the upcoming week I will try to reshoot this ballet so that it captures more action and does so more steadily. I will also combing photography with film when the setting and action calls for it. And we will continue to develop the setting so that it is more immersive in the story I would like to tell.
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It’s pretty incredible when research can be turned immediately into action. What I mean by this is that this week, as I was reading about animation on Wikipedia, I could not help thinking, “Can I reproduce some of these old-school animations?” Stop-motion animation is an old art form, with a first instance being recorded all the way back to 1898 ("Stop motion"). If this type of animation could be created more than a century ago, then surely I could create similar projects using my digital camera, MacBook Pro, and Final Cut Pro X. I saw the bouncy ball and running horse and knew that I had to do the same. I enjoyed reading about different forms of animation and watching old animations which provided a historical context for my learning. But if I really wanted to learn, I had to go from the passive to the active by just going out and making something. Here’s what I accomplished. This week I learned how to put together a sequence of images on Final Cut Pro. I was able to animate eight to twelve images into an infinite loop animation or one which lasted 2-3 seconds. I made a horse run, a ball bounce, and a pacman eat red dots. These projects were all done using two-dimensional cartoon images created on a computer and strung together. I have been creating images that move at 10 frames per second. I have found that this frame rate can create a fluid or choppy sense of motion all depending on the quality of the animation. I have also taken a stab at analog animations. I drew a ball bouncing and firework scene on 8-12 different sheets of paper and using different colored markers. The pictures sequenced together in this case were pretty bad. The frame moved shakily from side to side, the lighting was horrible, and the images strung together looked far from fluid and very amateur to say the least. Finally, I began to package my learning in a way that would be accessible to my students so they can see my own learning processes. I created a website for them where they would be able to emulate and tweak my projects and also be able aske their own further inquiry questions. All throughout this process my daughter has been testing my projects or working alongside me. It has been an engaging process to say the least. In the upcoming week, I will continue playing with lighting and further moving from the digital and into the analog in regards to physical objects in the physical world being manipulated so that they become digitally animated. Inquiry Questions addressed this week: 2. How can I manipulate lighting in order for the setting to look semi-realistic? 3. What is the best way to create a small setting for the action? 6. Is there an intersection between computer animation and stop action animation that I can adopt to make the project more efficient? 8. Can I package this project so that my students can also complete similar projects? 11. Would it be acceptable to allow my 10 year old daughter to assist me with this project? Resources. Animation. (2015, July 8). Retrieved July 14, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation Final Cut Pro X Stop Motion Tutorial. (2014, April 1). Retrieved July 14, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9sPdXPozAs Stop motion. (2015, July 2). Retrieved July 14, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion I am a believer in the importance of showcasing one's work in order to reach that authentic audience and also to hopefully inspire other's work. This week I'm the one who needs inspiring, at least in regards to this project. I want see what's possible with stop motion animation in order to spark my own creativity. The following video has done this for me and more. I have spent the last week or so in Philadelphia attending ISTE and another conference. I have tons of fun and learned so many different things! Unfortunately, I have had trouble keeping up with the MA program deadlines from both 600 and 680. This video speaks to how overwhelmed I am by deadlines, technological possibilities, and my stop motion 20time project. So week one 2otime research and prep was spent largely just watching videos like the one above. It's actually pretty cool to be able to watch a lot of different stop motion animation videos and call this research!
I have also started to brainstorm story ideas and even started putting together a set and other props. I'm not sure where this story is heading but I'm definitely looking forward to continuing my "research" and putting this together this learning experience in a way that will hopefully be fun for me and informative for my students. |
AuthorI would like to share my reflections on my own learning processes and 2otime journey ArchivesCategories |