You're right - Chicken Run is done by the same people as Wallace & Grommit
(you can really tell by the mouths). I really enjoy teaching clay
animation - the kids actually begin to look at Gumby as being very
technically advanced for the time period and the simple logistics of the
opening scene sparked some interesting discussions amongst my students!
Imagine - they thought Gumby was advanced! *L* It made me look twice, cause
I was sitting there thinking how cheesy it was! *L*
I am using a very basic set up. For lighting I snagged my husband's shop
lights (the kind that clip to the hood, not the fancy ones on stands -
that'll come later). I use web cams - I just bought 5 from Wal-Mart for
$98 - they had two boxes with 2 in each for $35, and one for $25. I have 8
laptops in my room that I use for my webpage class, so I have ample
computers, but last semester I only had 1 laptop available and that worked
fine for 8 students. I purchased the clay animation kit (page 570 in SAX)
that I really like - it works on Macs and PC's. You can also download a free
program from www.animateclay.com , but the animation kit allows you to edit
individual frames, add sounds, and add opening scenes/ending credits, etc.
My set-up involved one laptop with the webcam set up on a table that was the
filming station. They used another computer with the animation program to
edit their movies. If they wanted to add voices or sounds they used my
teacher computer because it is in my office, which is enclosed in glass
(similar to a real sound studio). We started out by talking about clay
animation and I showed them some student examples at
http://education.wichita.edu/claymation . We talked about the idea of
stop-motion video, and then I gave them storyboards to plot out their
movies. You can find dozens of storyboards online - just find one you like.
Then they created their backgrounds - I had them do this before they created
their clay figures because I knew the storyboards and backgrounds would be
the most boring for them, so I had them get those out of the way. Then they
created their clay figures and then they helped each other take the still
pictures. We saved them all to the server so we could transfer easily to the
editing computer, but a jump drive would do this easily as well.
When the project was completed I invited my middle school students to attend
a school board meeting and share their videos. I realize that some of you in
the large school districts might laugh at this, but in my rural community
having students present technology, especially technology that uses
equipment that we already have, was a huge WOW factor for me and my program.
Which is why when I asked for the money to buy the webcams my administrator
didn't expect them to come out of my own budget! :-)
And as soon as I figure out how, I will post a couple of my claymation
videos online.
~Michal
K-12 Kansas Art Teacher
http://www.geocities.com/theartkids
> OOH! Claymation!
>
> I just got a technology grant and was hoping to get some animation
> software. What are you using?
>
> As far as videos go, you just can't get any better than Wallace &
> Grommit. There's also "Chicken Run," but I think it's done by the
> same people.
