Movie Sunday: Making your own

So I haven't had a lot of time for movie-watching lately. I taught a five day stop-motion animation camp for high school students last week, and most of the previous month was spent getting ready. For instance, I had to learn the first thing about stop motion animation.

We had fun, and the kids even learned a little. A couple of them really got into it, and the rest at least participated to some degree. Here are their final projects. Enjoy.

Group 1 consisted of three hyper-motivated boys who spent just about every minute of the camp working on this epic saga. I think they also learned the meaning of "scope creep."

Group 2 eventually* consisted of two boys with -- let's call it different work styles. Their spare but action-packed prison film was the only one that used all custom-built characters and sets.

Group 3 was the largest, with the oldest kids and (by the end) all four female members of the class. They gave everyone nicknames, and generally kept the camp from turning into a complete nerdfest. Their musical masterpiece pretty much speaks for itself.

I made a few little pieces myself, as well as sculpting a puppet head. Perhaps one day I will get a chance to post them. On the other hand, the camp reminded me of how long these things take, and how much time kids seem to be able to make for themselves. 

In addition to camp preparations, we've been busy watching BBC comedies. We watched all 28 episodes of Coupling over the long 4th of July weekend. It's sort of like Friends, but with more sex. We also watched Still Bill the other day, an excellent documentary on Bill Withers. If you like his music, or you like the idea of a regular person making it big and keeping their soul, I highly recommend it. I've been singing "A'int no Sunshine" under my breath for almost a week now.

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* The group originally included a girl, but the boys learned the hard lesson that if you ignore women long enough they will go away.