PROGRAMME

DOCUMENTS:
Get Into Animation INTRODUCTION
SIX SESSIONS FROM STORY TO SCREEN SESSION 1
• What makes a
successful animation?
SESSION 2
SESSION 4 HOW CAN WE CAPTURE • What styles of stop motion
animation can we use?
OUR ANIMATION?
SESSION 3
• How can we make
our models?
SESSION 4
• How can we capture
our animation?
SESSION 5
• How can we add sound
and edit our animation?

See, think, make. SESSION 6

Learn • How can we showcase,
share and celebrate
intofilm.org our film?
VISUAL GLOSSARY

Into Film is a trading name of Film Nation UK. Registered charity no. 1154030. © Into Film 2020. All rights reserved.
Our resources are designed to be used with selected film titles, which are available free for clubs at www.intofilm.org/clubs

Teachers’
Activity outlines
notes Session 4 | Get Into Animation: Six Sessions from Story to Screen

How can we capture our animation?

In this session we will begin to animate our final film. We will look at some
top tips and golden rules for getting the best out of your animation and
consider different techniques that you can use to bring your characters
to life. There will be the chance to discover the different roles needed to
make an animation before assigning each team member a role and, finally,
animating our film.

Suggested timings:

If you have… Steps Slides

20 minutes 1, 4, 5, 6, 8 1, 4, 5, 6, 8

40 minutes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8

60 minutes + All All

Essential life skills

PROBLEM SOLVING TEAMWORK COMMUNICATION RESEARCH ANALYTICAL

EQUIPMENT NEEDED:
• Get Into Animation: Six Sessions from Story to Screen –
Session 4 PowerPoint presentation
• Get Into Animation: Visual Glossary PowerPoint presentation
• Animating Mouth Shapes worksheet (page 6)
• Top Tips worksheet (page 9)
• Modelling clay
• Coloured paper or card
• Black card
• A lightbox
• Coloured pens/pencils/paint
• Coloured acetate sheets or tissue paper
• Digital camera or tablet
• Stop motion software.

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Our resources are designed to be used with selected film titles, which are available free for clubs at www.intofilm.org/clubs

Activity outlines Session 4 | Get Into Animation: Six Sessions from Story to Screen

SESSION 4: HOW CAN WE CAPTURE OUR ANIMATION?

STEPS:

1. Slide 1 is the title slide for this fourth session in the series.

2. Recap on last week’s session and play the animation on slide 2 which
introduces the theme for this session – animating your film.

3. In order to recap on the learning and completed Top Tips worksheet

from the previous sessions, display slide 3 which explains that learners
will watch the films Frank and Plasticine People on slides 4 and 5.
Discuss with members how the films were made and if they could gain
or suggest any tips on animating their own films.

4. Play the clip of Early Man Animation Director Will Becher on slide 6
where he explains why they make different mouth shapes for each
character in the film. Explain to your group that they can elevate their
animation by creating different mouth shapes for their characters to
be animated in time with the dialogue. In professional animation each
phonetic syllable would have a corresponding mouth shape that would
be used. However, if this is the first animation your class have made
then there is no need to lip sync to this precise degree. Simply make
sure they use a variety of different mouth shapes and replace them in
between frames to achieve the effect.

5. Slide 7 explains the additional task for pairs to consider how different
sounds correspond to mouth shapes. Pairs will then photograph or
draw how the mouth is shaped on copies of the Animating Mouth
Shapes worksheet and then use this as a basis to create their own
model mouth shapes. In the accompanying Get Into Animation: Visual
Glossary PowerPoint presentation, there is a clip of our interview
with Kubo and the Two Strings Director Travis Scott, who explains how
young people can make additional expressions for their models on the
Top Tips slide.

6. Display slide 8 and explain that making a character blink is a simple and
effective way to give them emotion and make the audience identify with
what they are feeling. Ask members to explain how the technique might
work across the three different styles. How do they think varying the
length of the blink might affect the emotion they are portraying?

7. Play the video Animating Top Tips on slide 9 of the presentation and ask
members to discuss the top tips for animation. Are there any other tips
that they can think of to help with the animation process? Encourage
young people to add these to their copies of the Top Tips worksheet.

8. Before displaying slide 10 to your group, ask them if they can think of
the job roles that there might be on the set of an animated film. There
are suggestions on this slide and there are some brief notes about each
role in the slide notes section.

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Our resources are designed to be used with selected film titles, which are available free for clubs at www.intofilm.org/clubs

Activity outlines Session 4 | Get Into Animation: Six Sessions from Story to Screen

SESSION 4: HOW CAN WE CAPTURE OUR ANIMATION?

STEPS:

9. There are short clips from Into Film interviews and on-set footage
of each of these job roles on slide 11. To extend this activity you can
ask members to provide a definition for what they think each role is
responsible for doing on an animation set. There are simple definitions
in the slide notes. Alternatively, you could divide your group into
research groups and task each group with researching a job role online
and finding out what it entails before sharing their findings with the
wider group.

10. There are further job role exemplars on slide 12 that you can choose to
use with your group if they are experienced animators.

11. Display slide 13 of the accompanying presentation and ask members

what obstacles and difficulties they might come across during the
animation process. How do they think having a whole team of
animators behind the camera at any one time might be problematic?
Can they think of any ways to ensure that they manage their team and
their time well?

12. Use slide 14 to inform your club members that it is time to animate their
final film. You might want to appoint roles to each group to ensure that
the team work well and produce as much animation as possible within
your timeframe. It is a good idea to remind the teams how long they
have left to animate at intervals throughout the session.

TOP TIPS FOR ANIMATING:

Relay:
When your club members are animating, make sure each person in
the group has a role. Not all members need to be animating at the
same time; the script supervisor and sound person could be writing
and recording dialogue while other members are animating a
scene. Try to swap roles regularly so that every member has a turn
in each role.
On your marks:
Ask the students to put all models and scenery in place for the first
scene to begin. It is a good idea to take four or five establishing
frames at the beginning of every new scene; this will slow down
the action and allow the viewer to take in the new surroundings.
Get set:
To give an impression of movement, carefully adjust your props
and characters’ positions by a tiny amount. Once everyone in the
group is happy, take a photograph. Take care that the group do not
change anything that is meant to stay still. It is worth taking two
photographs every time you move your character or object as this
will help to ensure the movements are smooth.

intofilm.org © Into Film 2020 4

Our resources are designed to be used with selected film titles, which are available free for clubs at www.intofilm.org/clubs

Activity outlines Session 4 | Get Into Animation: Six Sessions from Story to Screen

SESSION 4: HOW CAN WE CAPTURE OUR ANIMATION?

TOP TIPS FOR ANIMATING:

Go:
A rule of thumb is that 12 adjustments, each one captured twice
on camera, will add up to about one second of film. Remember to
make only small adjustments each time, the bigger the movements
between the frames, the faster the action and the jerkier the
animation.
In the frame:
A good tip for helping younger pupils to keep their fingers out of
shot when capturing each frame is to mark a line on the floor with
gaffer tape and ask everyone to stand behind this line while one
member of the group captures the frame. Ask the group to give
a signal to the student taking the photo each time; this can be
“Action”, or simply “Ready”. The student capturing the frame can
then respond, letting the group know they are ready to put the new
frame in place. Younger pupils respond especially well to this as it
encourages a team dynamic and helps them to take responsibility
for their own work.

STEPS:

13. Slide 15 sets the question for the next session in this series and you can
play this to draw a close to the session.

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Worksheet

Animating mouth shapes

You will need:
• A partner
• A camera/ tablet OR pencil and paper

Instructions
1. Partner A will say the sounds listed below in the sounds column.
2. Partner B will either photograph or draw their mouth shape as
they repeat the sound to go into the middle column.
3. Together, think about how your claymation or paper cut out
model can make this sound and draw it in the third column.
4. Use this worksheet as a reminder when you are making different
versions of your character models in preparation for the
animation process.
How you can make this
Photograph or drawing shape with your model?

M, B, P
man
ball
pop

A, I
apple
ice

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Worksheet

Animating mouth shapes (continued)

How you can make this

Photograph or drawing shape with your model?

E
egg

If speaking
quickly
C, K, N
knock
n

O
flow

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Worksheet

Animating mouth shapes (continued)

How you can make this

Photograph or drawing shape with your model?

OOO
food

L, D, TH
later
day
thumb

F, V
first
van

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Worksheet

Top tips for animating

Story Tip 1

Tip 2

Tip 3

Story Tip 1
structure
Tip 2

Tip 3

Animation Tip 1
design
Tip 2

Tip 3

Model Tip 1
making
Tip 2

Tip 3

Multiple Tip 1
expressions
Tip 2

Tip 3

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Worksheet

Top tips for animating (continued)

Sound Tip 1

Tip 2

Tip 3

Software Tip 1

Tip 2

Tip 3

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