Cut Paper Animation
Cut paper animation offered an opportunity to tell a story through textures and scale. It was more challenging when it came to arranging the components because they were so light that they often moved every frame if you weren’t careful. I would say that this process was soothing at first when we were ideating, but became more frustrating when the actual filming began. Nevertheless, it is a medium that I would like to explore and expand on — I appreciate it’s detail and ephemeral quality.
I think with this form of animation it would be important to show a variety of examples that range from easy to extremely detailed. This would allow for more opportunities to assess what is achievable for students in a given time frame, and what they might aspire to. I think the exciting part of this project might be the opportunity for student collaboration.
Lesson Ideas:
Collage & Animation: This lesson would focus on incorporating collage into your animation practice. It could introduce sustainable practices by recycling magazines and books as content for your animation. This could also overlap with science by using old textbooks to illustrate different cycles students are learning in class.
1 Minute Storytelling - Collaborative: In teams of 3 or 4, build a story that you would like to share with your class. Begin with ideating, storyboarding, and sketching as a group. Then, move into assigning roles and completing your 1 minute short using the cut paper method.
Digital to Analog to Digital: Beginning in illustrator, students will select an animal and illustrate it’s transportation sequence (whether that is walking, flying, swimming, gliding). We will then cut the sequence out of paper using a cricut maker. We will create an animated sequence using stop motion studio on our phones for our final video.