Claymation with PowerPoint!

Mike setting up for a scene. When I wanted to do claymation in my class I had to do some major research to learn how. Ms. Hill, a math teacher here at The Rice School wanted to have her students do a special project on fractions so we worked together on a project where 2 middle school students (Stephanie Francic in 8th grade and Michael Sanchez in 7th grade) mentored a group of 5th grade students to make a movie about fractions. Other teachers were interested in how to keep it simple and do it in a classroom setting so I created this page. The pictures on this page are some we made while students were working on Ms. Hill's movie.

Ms. Hill's Fraction Pizza Party Warning - This is a huge file. It will take a while to download! This is a folder containing a packed PowerPoint presentation. To view the movie, download the zipped folder and unzip it. The folder contains a file called pngsetup. Double-click on that file and the movie will open in PowerPoint or PowerPoint viewer. If you don't have PowerPoint or the free viewer program it can be downloaded free from Microsoft.

Here are the basic directions. up

First: Gather your materials. I suggest the following:
- Animation planning forms
- Tri-fold board ( this needs to be black or covered with black paper)
- 2 inexpensive gooseneck lamps
- a digital camera – I use a Mavica that uses diskettes.
- Some kind of stand or tripod to position the camera
- Modeling clay (the kind that doesn't dry out)
- Pipe cleaners
- Aluminum Foil
- Fishing twine to help things fly or fall
- Wiggly eyes (from a craft store)
- Construction Paper and basic art supplies for creating the background and props
- Photoshop or Windows Movie Maker
- Public domain sound effects or you can make your own
Second:
- Plan your Claymation using the animation planning form or you can make your own storyboard. Your plan needs to include each of the major scenes of you movie.
Third:
- Use the clay to create your characters. Use pipe cleaners covered with aluminum foil to make the inside and mold the clay around the outside. If your character changes dramatically in your movie you need to go ahead and make several versions of it. Once you start filming it is too late to take time to mold a new figure from scratch.
Fourth:
- Create your background and props. Set this up within the tri-fold board. Put your 2 gooseneck lamps up on either side of your setup to provide lighting for shooting.
Fifth:
- Set up everything and have a dry run-through. This is where you will practice doing the animation without filming. You will discover any problems or if you need to go back to step 3 or 4 to fix something.
Sixth:
- Position your camera on a stand or tripod and focus so that your scene fills the entire frame. It is very important that once you start shooting your camera never move. Each frame should be shot from exactly the same angle for a realistic affect.
Seventh:
- Start shooting your movie. Take a picture and then make very small adjustments or movements and take another picture. Remember the more pictures you take with very small incremental movements the more realistic your film will be.
Eighth:
- Open PowerPoint. Start a new presentation with a blank slide and insert the first image. Insert a new blank slide and insert the second image. Continue this process until each image has been inserted on an individual slide in order.
Ninth:
- You now need to set the transition of evey slide in your presentation to change automatically every 0 seconds. You do this by choosing slide transition from the Slideshow menu and removing the the option to change on mouseclick and choose "Automatically after 00:00". Now when you play your presentation, each slide will immediately follow the previous one and it will look like a movie.

Sound and PowerPoint up

Sound can be an important part of your clay animation although it isn't necessary.
In PowerPoint a music file can begin on the first slide and continue to the end of the presentation.:
Before you put the sound(s) in your movie, locate the sound you want and place that file inside a folder that has your PowerPoint file.
Now you can go to Insert -> Movies and Sounds -> Sound from file and browse to the sound to insert it. It will ask if you want the sound to play automatically (answer yes). A small icon of a speaker will appear. It is not necessary for this to be visible on your final movie but for now leave it here.
Right-click on the speaker icon and go to custom animation .
You should see the sound file listed on the right hand side. Right-click on it and choose timing .
The option for start should be set to with previous .
Set the delay for 0.
Set the repeats as needed.
Choose the Effects tab.
Start Playing should be set to from beginning .
Stop Playing should be set to the number of the last slide in your movie.

Some Great Audio Resouces up

Web pages about animation and claymation

animation 101 - claymation tutorials
Tech4Learning, Inc. - Clay Animation Kit - Sample Projects - I really think the kit is overpriced and unnecessary but there are great examples and good information here.
Claymation
Claymation - Computer Graphics
claymation powerpoint
Lesson Plan: Claymation - Art Technology
LARRY'S TOON INSTITUTE -- Lesson Plan
The Clay Animation How to page: Animation Equipment
Clay Animation
Clay Animation Made Easy
Clay Tips

Claymation with PowerPoint!

Here are the basic directions. up

Sound and PowerPoint up

Some Great Audio Resouces up

Web pages about animation and claymation

Sample animations up