Understanding the power of digital media and how it can be manipulated is a crucial skill. Hands on Media Education is a Canadian organisation using stop-motion animation to introduce these concepts to people of all ages. Here, Director Jessie Curell tells us what a typical workshop entails.
Teaching citizens of all ages how to engage with digital tools by becoming active creators of media, rather than passive consumers, is what I do.
Stop-motion animation is a captivating experience for all
Our iPad Stop Motion Animation workshop encourages these skills with youth, adults and older people alike, and it is, in my opinion, one of the most engaging workshops I have ever designed.
The tactile and digital nature of the project, in combination with the workshop’s versatile and accessible nature, ensures a captivating experience for all. Animation is about creating magic after all, and people of all ages enjoy the world of imagination and make-believe.
'Media literacy' is the ability to use, understand, analyse and produce media. By creating an iPad animation, the creator is also learning important digital literacy skills, such as touch-screen navigation, photography, video production, video editing, voice recording, music and sound-effect addition.
Structure of a workshop
Each workshop begins with a short introduction to animation; what is animation, and how are different materials used to create the illusion of movement? If we consider how many drawings we need for a flipbook, for example, we can begin to apply this new knowledge to each animation or cartoon we have seen. Did you know that, traditionally, animators needed 24 images for just one second of animation? If we multiply 24 by the number of seconds in one minute, we already have 1,440 images. Now consider how many images were required to create the 88-minute animated film The Lion King!