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teaching stop-motion animation, desktop publishing, video production
Course Objectives
A List of Materials Needed
and A Course Outline
For two years, I taught a middle school class
called Media Production. This course lasted for
nine weeks and was taught four times a year
to both 8th graders and 6th graders. I designed
the course and included topics
in which I was personally interested.
I've had lots of requests for information about
teaching Media Production
and wanted to make the information available
to help other teachers.
Course Objectives:
Students will:
Create their own stop-motion animation. In order to do this, they will:
Create a storyboard
Design and construct props and a set
Model clay actors
Film their animation using stop-motion techniques
Write a news article for the school newspaper. In order to do this, they will:
Learn about the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press and define what this means in relation to students as middle school-aged children
Understand journalism terms: lead and inverted pyramid
Research a news article
Develop keyboarding skills as they type their news articles
Proofread their articles and engage in peer editing
Plan and videotape a segment of the school news show. In order to do this, they will:
Create a T-script
Create cue cards
Plan and design props and a backdrop
Learn camera basics including some special effects
Videotape their segment
Depending on what your partnership plans are, you may want to add your own objectives here.
A
A STURDY tripod for your camcorder (Spend the extra money and get one that won't fall over easily. Don't buy one under $150.)
A copystand (Okay, this isn't absolutely necessary, but
it is very handy to have for filming the Claymations. Mine cost
about $400.)
A microphone for the videocamera (Wal-Mart and Sears
usually carry cheap $10 microphones. Radio Shack has some nicer
ones for about $40.)
Typical classroom supplies: construction paper (and more
construction paper), scissors, markers, big paper for cue cards,
glue, extra clay, posterboard is nice for protecting desks while
the students work with clay, class sets of hand-outs
Computer with desktop publishing software (You need a Macintosh
or a PC running Windows. Don't let any administrators try to give
you an Apple and tell you to make it work! As far as software goes,
I like PageMaker or QuarkXpress--these are both memory hogs, so make
sure your computer has plenty of RAM--at least 16 MBs if you plan
to be using a PowerMac.)
A quality laser printer
A good printshop that will print your newspaper cheaply. (I
found a printer who was willing to "xerox" and fold the paper for us
for about $80 for 700 copies instead of "printing" it which would have
cost $200 more an issue. I started out printing a 4 page (counting
front and back) 8 1/2 by 11 inch "paper". I used this size because we
couldn't afford a larger paper without selling a good amount of ads
for the paper. If you want to sell ads, make it easy on yourself.
Sell business card sized ads (you just xerox their business card to
the page). We sold them in 1994-1996 for $20 an ad)
A TV and VCR (Preferably a 4 head VCR with the ability to freeze the picture clearly.)
Animation instructions--2 days
Write up storyboards--2 days
Build sets--5-7 days
Create clay actors--3-6 days
Film animations--5 days
Freedom of speech--1 day
Intro to school journalism/Brainstorming--1 day
Research articles--2 days
Write/Revise--3 days
Form film teams--1 day
T-Scripts--3 days
Filming--2 days per team (1-2 weeks)
Set & Prop construction--concurrent with filming
Preview video/Select audio dubs--1 day
Show final cut--1 day
Post-Production party--1 day
Demonstrate Internet uses--RealAudio, CuSeeMe
Plan longer interactions with partnership classroom
Cel animation using overhead transparencies
Short Unit on Advertising--create commercials
Tom Snyder’s Decisions Decisions Violence in the Media
