At Lausanne, being able to create a joyful but challenging learning environment is essential. That is why our International Baccalaureate classes are critical for students to push their creative boundaries and sharpen their skills.
Upper Schoolers in IB Multimedia arts recently had the opportunity to experiment with their artistic strengths when Mr. Naya tasked them with creating a movie in "Claymation" stop-motion animation techniques or hyper-lapse animation.
"Stop motion animation combines kinesthetic learning with technology-based learning by providing an opportunity for students to compose characters, sets and props by hand to use in progressive rhythm to create the illusion of movement," said Upper School teacher Mr. Naya.
There are also aspects of fundamental physics and biology that come into play. When shooting characters in keyframes, movement is only believable if analyzed and broken down into realistic steps or iterations. When put in succession at ten frames per second, it creates the magic of stop motion animation.
"The stop motion process was very interesting to me," said IB Diploma Programme student Susie Stephens '21. "I knew how it worked before starting this project, but this was the first time that I made a full stop motion video on my own. For this project, I created a concept, made a background, and brought in things I already had rather than creating myops from scratch."
For students to create videos like the one Susie made, they had to be very observant of the physics of movement as they took each picture, so their animation showed believable fluid motion.
"I really enjoyed the process of taking the pictures, and I also loved that I had complete creative freedom with this project so the topic could be about something I was genuinely interested in and excited about," Susie said. "Overall it was a very interesting and fun experience."
Check out the stop motion animation videos below of Susie Stephens '21, Jordan Timmons '21, Jacob Hamer '21 and Kevin Lin '22: