Project for "Socks-on-Floor"

STOP MOTION FILM PROJECT

So I know I have fallen behind in my blogging for this week... it has been a busy week.  I'm in the middle of working on a painting for the Director's Cut show (being juried and curated by Julie Zarate), forcing myself to spend an hour on Sculptris everyday to prepare me for Zbrush and then I also work, which means either I sub for another teacher, or I teach my own students.

"Socks-on-floor" watching and analyzing
stop motion films... she even came up with
her own system of filled in stars.
She records the title, length and mediums used.

      My daughter aka "Socks-on-Floor" when asked what she wants to be when she grows up has been answering it with a combination of lawyer, rockstar, film maker... rockstar comes and goes and so does lawyer, but she has been interested and has been making her own storyboards and films since she was six years old (she is now 10).  Over the past year she made two films for school which were book reports for her fourth grade class... these were labor intensive both for her and myself (I had to edit and compile over 80 videos, to make the first 12 minute film on the Hunger Games, I learned a lot and had fun, but I'm not overly anxious to repeat three full days of editing any time soon.)
    Someone shared a stop motion film with me on facebook. Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY
I had to share it with my daughter who immediately started spouting off ideas for making her own. So this time we are taking a different approach.  I came up with an assignment project for her, so that she will learn some valuable things in the process of making film.  I'm starting her out with research, she has to view 20-30 short stop motion films and review them, pick the five best and write a short summary of each, why she likes them, and what she has learned in viewing them.  Part Two involves researching Stop Motion Film on wikipedia (yeah, I know its not a scholarly source, but I think it will get the job done.) She has to write down and define every word she doesn't know, and paraphrase each paragraph. By doing this method, I am essentially guiding her to teach herself.  Research is something that is taught in schools but not really encouraged towards something a student actually is interested in (IMHO, how many research papers did I have to do on dead authors because that was what we were reading in class, as opposed to a subject that I picked?) Part Three involves coming up with 6-10 different ideas for subject matter for her film. By making her think about multiples, she will be evolving her ideas. She will do some rough sketches for each and then explain to me which one she has picked and why. Part Four involves gathering all of the necessary supplies, and storyboarding. Part Five means making the film. Part Six will be learning to edit the film. I'm actually going to walk her through the first 10-15 seconds of editing and then let her go from there.  Then lastly she will present the film to me and family or friends and we'll publish it on the net.. so there begins her portfolio.

Serious enough about this project that my
10 year old is working through lunch.
Little does she know that this will be a
frequent occurrence as she grows up...

    Ultimately she is going to create a short stop motion film minimum of 1 minute but no more than 3 minutes, and she can work on this for up to two months... because I guesstimate that it will take her that long to do all of the research and compose her ideas if she works at a normal 10 year old pace.  So hopefully, I will have something to share on her project by the end of May. She says..that these are her 'art lessons' with Mommy... which cracks me up, but she's right.

What some of my other students are working on.

Speaking of Art Lessons, I have a couple of photos to share from some of my other classes.  Some of the fun things that I do with my private school and private lesson students of all ages are pictured below.

Top Left: Tuesday Night Ladies Painting Class, Students are working on creating ten different kinds of still lifes from the same source material. Pictured Marilea with Edge Painting, and Stephanie with Close up to the point of Abstraction.  Top Right: Art Society at a Private School, Students are creating Decalcomania projects in both top right picture and middle lower picture. Bottom Left, same class, student has torn and collage decalcomania project to make a new form painting.  Bottom Right: Private Lesson Student nearly finished with grape study in Prisma Color Pencils. 

 encourage in a way