Film Education: A User's Guide

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Film-making can use either analogue or digital processes – and of course a combination. Producing stop motion film is a good example of this. We open with this video where a group of 5-6 year old children makes a stop motion film.

Analogue activities can be anything from playful acting, drawing, modelling or storytelling. These activities can enable both individual and group reflections.

When children make films using a digital device, they get an early awareness of film as a combination of picture and sound chosen to tell a specific story and create a certain atmosphere.

More inspiration about stop-motion

Stop motion is a simple way to make an animation film. You record one picture of an object at a time and move the object between each picture. When all pictures are played, a smooth movement is created (you might know films like Pingu by Otmar Gutmann and Wallace and Gromit by Nick Park).

Note that this process requires some time and patience but the activity invites children to explore the magic of animation, which is the preferred format for this age group.

You can find several “easy to use” apps for stop motion – we recommend “Stop motion” for iPad.

Here are three examples of simple pixilation productions with a group of 5-6 year old children.

3-6 children can participate at a time:

Fighting a Wizard

Angry Glass

Transformating Toys

And another three examples where you can use cutouts, toys and other objects in small stop motion productions.

1-2 children can participate at a time.

Inspiration for creative activities

You can start with watching a film and talking about it, and use this as inspiration for creative activities.

Watch LAMBS by Gottfried Mentor and see some example activities below.

You can also let the creative activity stand alone or relate it to another arts experience (reading, music, game etc.) as well as to a theme the children can relate to (friendship, nature, traditions etc.)

Examples of creative activities inspired by the film Lambs

Decorate different animals to give them different personalities.

Talk about the choices they make. You can use print-outs from the internet (3-4 years) or draw an animal from scratch (5-6 years). Do this in the same location as the screening.

Suggested group size 5-20 children, 1-3 facilitators.

Visit a farm or a nearby park with a group of children and talk about how the animals look different.

a. Use a camera to make a video or take pictures and maybe record some animal sounds

b. Afterwards you can edit the material and play with combining animals with “wrong” sounds. This will help them to understand the very basic principles of film editing and sound effects.

Suggested group size 10-15 children, 2-3 facilitators.

Let the children find pictures of their favorite animals on the internet. Make a print and cut out the animals.

a. Make a collage with the animals – maybe add some colour / materials. Then let the children tell about their favorites. (3-6 years)

b. Record a stop motion film where the animals meet (see more about stop motion later in this step). Let the children add a sound to their own animal when they enter the stage (5-6 years).

Suggested group size 3-6 children, 1-2 facilitators.

Task

Think about which creative activities you would arrange connected to a screening of Wolf by Julia Ocker.

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Making films with young children