Session 1 · CREATE: Connect
Flipbooks and spinning toys
- 10 minHook: show a short stop-motion clip, then slow it right down frame by frame. What is really happening?
- 20 minMake a 12-page flipbook of a bouncing ball or a growing plant. Change the drawing only a little each page.
- 15 minMake a thaumatrope (a spinning card with a bird on one side and a cage on the other) or look at a zoetrope strip. Why do we see movement?
- 5 minDiary: explain in one sentence how animation tricks your brain.
Session 2 · CREATE: Respond
Animators from Aotearoa and the world
- 10 minLook at Len Lye's scratched and painted films, and learn how he drew straight onto the film itself.
- 15 minWatch clips of Fred O'Neill's plasticine films from 1950s Dunedin and The Pen (2001) on NZ On Screen. What materials were used? How do the characters show feelings?
- 15 minCompare with one international example (such as Lotte Reiniger's cut-out silhouettes or Aardman's clay). Fill in a 'what I see, what I think, what I wonder' chart.
- 10 minChoose your context and brainstorm who your audience will be. Start a list of story ideas.
Getting started
Make a 6-page flipbook of a ball dropping and bouncing once.
Stretch
Make a zoetrope from a cardboard cylinder with slits and a paper strip of 12 drawings.
Checkpoint
A working flipbook, a completed viewing chart, and a first idea for your audience.
Activities for this week
- Flipbook and thaumatrope: How do still pictures turn into movement?
Useful this week
- Zoetrope ↗ The spinning toy that shows how animation tricks your eyes.
- The Animation Collection ↗ New Zealand animation from Len Lye to Footrot Flats, including stop-motion films.
- Fred O'Neill ↗ The Dunedin animator who brought plasticine characters to life in the 1950s and 60s.
- Experimental film, 1920s to 1960s ↗ How Len Lye painted and scratched animation straight onto film.