Imagine

Trevon W.
Per.4
5/27/11

My group’s claymation was about a gang who danced in a city. There was a gang leader and the rest of his dance crew. They danced to mostly beats on a boom box. We got our ideas about our claymation by making things up as we worked. We had only figured out certain things in advance

My group worked together well as a team. We all did a different thing to make the claymation how it is. By working in a group we were able to get things done faster and easier. We had problems inserting music and narration into our movie, but we’re able to fix it with the teacher’s laptop.

We first made the clay figures that would be in our movie. Then we made a background. After that we started filming the movie. We needed to have a minutes worth of frames. After we were done filming we started to make the music that would be in our movie. Finally we narrated the beginning of the claymation and inserted it into our movie.

I enjoyed making the clay figures the most while making our claymation. I had made about one fourth of clay figures in the movie. The figures were all made in a certain way, but were all unique in their design. What I found challenging was making the clay figures move in the movie. It was especially hard to make the figures jump or flip.

The thing that I think went well was making the music and narration. Although we had problems inserting them both creating the two was extremely easy. Also while watching the movie the music matched the dance moves perfectly and the dance moves were executed amazingly.

If I had made this claymation again I would have made the background better and the music easier to install. That is how my group and I constructed our claymation.

Gabriel A. 05/27/2011
Technology Period: 06

Technology Final – Essay:

The name of our Claymation movie was “Godzilla versus The Rainbow Monster.” It was inspired by when the group turned multiple clay colors and shapes into a lizard-like figure. Once we made the figure stand up, we got the idea of making a clay version of the famous fiction monster from Toho Studios, Tokyo, Japan. The story line is simple, because it relates to most of the Godzilla films.

A monster comes from outer space and lands in Tokyo, Japan. Once the monster started infecting the city with its ooze, it awakes Godzilla, the worlds most powerful and destructive monster, who was mutated after the atomic bomb was dropped in Japan in 1945, and he was awaken 1954 after mutating from an average lizard, to a atomic, fire breathing dinosaur.

The two creatures meet each other once they both are in the city. The Rainbow Monster notices Godzilla’s powers and tries to take them using its ooze. But Godzilla fought back and threw it into a building. The Rainbow Monster then absorbed the buildings material to form its new exoskeleton of nothing but parts of the building.

It summons a snake of ooze to attack Godzilla, but it had no affect on him because Godzilla threw it back at him. Godzilla then bites off the creature’s tail, spinning him around into Asian Publix. The creature eventually gives up and died out melting into a pile of its own ooze which also eventually dried up.

Creating the scene was relatively easy. We took a medium sized cardboard box and put in a background. It included the sun, clouds, and a spaceship. We then took the remaining cardboard pieces and turned them into buildings, which we marked as Asian Publix, Tokyo Tower, National Bank of Tokyo, and Toyota. We doodled a bit on the buildings so that the viewers will see some humor in it.

For instance, on the left wall spelled “Tokyo” with the K and Y backwards. We wrote other doodles on the buildings like “Kim Loves Kyle”. On the streets we also drew roads, intersections, and parking lots. Also, originally we had a Dora figure and a taco, because the original story was about Dora crossing the border and Godzilla eating her. But we figured that would be offensive so we mashed Dora and the taco to create the rainbow monster.

The name from the Rainbow Monster came nowhere else but how the monster looked like. A set of random colors on one figure. We carved our named into it, but halfway into shooting they disappeared. The video wasn’t really difficult to shoot because I was familiar with doing the same thing with other toys, like Lego.

What I wanted to be done was that we would have made the video longer, and more affective with the story line. It basically was just two monsters fighting in a stop motion film. What went well was the creation of the Godzilla figure, a lot of detail was put into it. The set was made for fun, for all we’ve known; we could’ve just used half a cardboard box. Other than that, the filming went great along with the movie.

Jocelyn H.
period 5
Technology- final exam
May 27, 2011

We’ve been working on our Clymation Factory project. Weve been divided into several groups and each had to make up a different ideas to what our project had to be about. My groups clymation project was made by me Jocelyn, Amanda, Natalie, Corey, Jordan, and Marisa. We are not done yet but we had some great things happening in our clayma. Our story is that one of the characters, the main character Corey has come into a small village called Brooksville. This village is very small and not much things are happening in the littl place, it is very quiet and deserted. Anyways Corey seems to get sick and gets two sick he gos to the hospital and discovers he has a rare disease that hasnt been seen for over a million years. He starts to infect the whole village with it. The disease is now to be called the Ozey Eye.

How we came up with our idea for our claymation was that we were foolishly passing notes to Corey and he had happened to put a winky eye, and it did not seem like a winky eye. It looked gross and bad so Amanda and I called it THE OZEY EYE! We figured out eveything in advance, not rally actually we first had a different idea that we were gonna make a food contest but the ozey eye came out to be better and more entertaining to our fellow classmates.

We got our ideas by making our first scene and then it just went up as we made the rest. It was such a funny thing to come with, but it was also very entertaining. What triggerers our claymation is our classmate Corey on how bad he makes winky faces which now to us are ozey eyes.
Our group worked okay together, there was some days where no one did anything, but maybe two or one person would be working but the rest was okay with making it all happen. We had our camerman, our clay maker, our story person and the person who was in charge of moving the people. We also had the person who took care of where we had our stuff. The benefits working as a team was making our ideas come as one to become a great movie. The problems we encountered were some people not even trying to work or help as a group. Our team would work out our problems by just forgetting it because this movie is worth a big grade.

The steps in creating our project were first brainstorming on how we should have our ozey eye turn into a movie. The next step wa to make all of the characters which was everyone in our group. It became such a drag because someone had stolen our clay people and we had to remake them several times. The other step was then make the villages road and making the cardboard into a city. The last step was to actually film it and have our idea. What I particularly enjoyed making in this project was filming it and then looking back at it and seeing how the movie goes. It’s just so funny to actually think we came up with it. What I found challenging was actually filming it. I am so not a computer person so it frustrates me to put on the camera and everything. What I think went well was making the clay people and how their so much bigger than the cars we actually used in the movie. The story went well too. What I would improve making this would be on making the city and hospital and everything bigger and more clearer. I actually had a fun time making this project hopefully next year in high school we get to do something similar to this(:

Beware the slimy ooze!

Technology Exam Essay
Angela C
5/27/11
P4

Making my Claymation was very interesting. Making the Claymation was my kind of thing. I got to make the background, shoot pictures, and post it on the vodcast server. I like to create such fun projects, making the Claymation was probably the best project I’ve ever made. I had so much fun from beginning to the very end.

My group’s Claymation is about, Romeo and Juliet but here is a twist. You think you know Juliet as a sweet or good princess but his time she has let her true self come out. Juliet is a wild dancer to the song “Black and Yellow”. While making the claymation we had to make clay clothes for Romeo and Juliet, make a scenery/background, shoot pictures, make titles and credits, find effects and sounds, record sounds, and post it on the vodcast server. This creation required hard work and effort.

Everybody wanted to do this, make that, and design. It was very hard for our group to figure out who did what. When we were shooting pictures we used a wire called fire wire to connect to the computer. We shot so many pictures it was amazing. We shot three to four pictures for each move we made with Romeo and Juliet. When we finished shooting pictures we imported all of the pictures to iMovie, that way we can put sound, titles, and effects.

After we finished and posted it to the vodcast server, the vodcast server is a special website used by the district, we also posted it to Imagine; Imagine is a special website used by Mr. Goldstein to put our creations on display. I really enjoyed everything we did to make the creation happen. I personally think most things went well because we worked hard. There were a couple of problems with cooperating but we pretty much covered it.

My group over all had tough times but, we got through them and made a great movie. Something I would like to improve is the way we presented the movie like, I would make the movie with story pages so it looks like your reading while watching the movie. I’d also like to change the ending when Juliet is dancing and she completely becomes a ball. I didn’t really think that was good. I think that the beginning of the project should be like all fairytales begin “once upon a time”. The movie was definitely spontaneous.

All of my other projects haven’t been as cool as the Claymation. Technology class is full of life experiences that are very valuable during life, especially if you want to be a director or anyone who wants to make a movie, or even if you want to be a technology teacher like Mr. Goldstein. One day when I want to make a movie I’ll always remember what I did in Mr. Goldstein’s class.

Lily N.
Period 4

Technology has so many fun things to do. In technology class, we had been doing so many projects. The best project we ever did was the claymation project. Claymation is when you make a figure and take a picture then move the model then take a picture again. One minute claymation movie is about six hundreds pictures! My group and I made a claymation movie about Romeo and Juliet. I was the one who created this fairy tale. The reason why I chose this is because I had a dream about this wonderful story. But what if this fairy tale turns upside down? How do you feel when Juliet and Romeo start hugging? Then everything happens underground. Juliet starts going crazy by singing Black and Yellow. When she starts dancing, Romeo’s heart breaks into pieces.
Our group started right away when they heard my story. We all worked together to start modeling clays while I’m writing the story. They were so exited and thrilled that they are working together. When one of us had an idea, we all took a vote to see if it is fair that we can do that. This is so fun while working with friends.

All of us were working as a team. The benefits of working as a team were working together. There were a few problems with the background and the model’s cloths. Then one of our group starts printing a background and all of us took a vote again to see how the model’s cloths look like. There was a problem when or how we get Juliet’s cloths flying. This group never gives up, we begin to take turns and helping each other.

If you want to make a claymation movie, you need to know the steps! The first steps are choosing a story. If you don’t have story you can’t make a claymation movie. The second steps are making a model out of clay. When the model is finished you move the model and then take a picture and it keeps going until you want to stop. The third steps are sound effects. If you are done, the movie has to have sound. To make it humorous or to tell what is going on. Then the last steps are putting it to a movie and put it on a website. This project is a lot of fun. I hope all of us enjoy this claymation project because it is very cool when it’s works.

There was one thing that was challenging for me were how to make Juliet’s cloths fly. But our teacher has fishing line so that we can attach the clay then takes a picture. A lot of things went well like make the model walks or making Juliet dancing but it was very fun doing this claymation project. If I ever do this claymation project, I would be very exited and then start making a story. I don’t think our claymation need to add anything. I just hope that I can do this again.

Ivet B.
Claymation Essay

My group’s project was about finding out the true side of Juliet where the truth was so thrilling and weird. The way me and my group thought of this idea is when we watched all of the claymations about a mouth ago, then we thought of something more weird and funny. We sorted everything and figured it out in advance.

We got our idea by thinking of what could be weird and funny–something you would never think would happen– so we turned a romantic story into a funny comedy of romance and dance. Our team worked pretty well for the most part we did not play and worked hard so we finished first. The benefits were that we got the learn how to work together but some problems were everybody wanted to be a main character or someone important but at the end we all got a important part to do.

The steps we used were first figure out what to do then make the characters and sets then we started stopmotion animation to start making the movie at the end we add the noise and post it on the blog. What I loved about the clay mation was the sound the sound effects also I was Romeo so I got to talk in it. What I found challenging was we were not agreeing on the ideas.

I think the sound went well because it was really funny and because the sound helped you concentrate and helped the group not fight and the group take the tension away. If I could I would improve the people in the group because everybody wanted to be in power. We needed some weakness in the group and all the people in the group being in power made the group fight.

Aryanna H.
Period 4
Technology exam

My claymation is about “The Real Juliet” because not every fairy tale has to end with a happy ending. Some fairy tales can end with bad thing or exciting things. Our fairy tale ends with a very funny ending. So in the beginning of our claymation Romeo and Juliet meet up at Juliet’s castle and they hug and have their first kiss. Then Juliet leaves to go change while Romeo waits he gets Juliet’s clothes thrown at him. He decides to leave to go down stairs and then Juliet comes and she wearing a “hood” outfit. And Juliet takes out her iPod and starts dancing, break dancing and doing the worm. Romeo gets confused and then they both run off together.

For our claymation we wanted to do something funny but classy at the same time and one of the group members said why don’t we do Romeo and Juliet. We decided on that and we said, “How can we do something funny in Romeo and Juliet?” Then that’s when we decided that we could make her start to dance to a gang song with the iPod and we all agreed. We kind of did to things we had our idea before we started but as we went we did a couple of different things.

Our group had a couple of issues because every single person in our group liked to be in control. So we had problems with who did what at what times. We worked out our problems by deciding what’s best for the group. We also did the show of hands game where whatever idea had the most people going with it that’s wht we did.

The steps in creating our project was that in the beginning we said that “we weren’t gonna take any breaks” so we started off trying to finish all of the clay people as good as we could get them. We tried to make our clay people look as realistic as we could get them. Then after we finished the clay people we moved on to the background and props. We assigned the people in our group to get certain things like cardboard, paper, background paper, and the castle. And everyone in the group did a fantastic job with the claymation. Once we got the claymation together we had to decide on which music we were going to have Juliet dance to. We picked the gang song Black and Yellow. After we did that we were ready to shoot and have a successful claymation.

The thing that I most enjoyed was when we were actually shooting the claymation. Because we had to figure out how to make them look like they were actually moving. Sometimes it would look so funny and we would laugh so hard. Because it looked like he was floating, then taking a step. Another thing I enjoyed was listening to music because when we fought it took the tension away.

The thing I found most challenging was when we would move the people and put them in a box and when we would come back the next day we would have to try to get our whole set up back in the same position the next day. Another hard thing was that ouir cameras didn’t connect every day so we would have to prop the set up high some days and use the built- in iSight.

The thing I would improve on if I did this again was that we need to be more organized with our personal items and not have a team that has every one that wants to be in power because some of the arguing was to much to handle. Another thing I would have done differentlt or improved was that I would have spent more time on the clay people themselves and made the background look so much more realistic.

I would have liked to make the project longer and it have more meaning to it because I felt like we kind of rushed being the first ones that finished!!!

Jessica G.
May 27, 2011
Period 4

The past few weeks Mr.Goldstein’s classes have been working on a project called claymation. There are a lot of reasons why Mr.Goldstein or any teacher would assign this project. Individually, each group took there time to think about what they wanted their claymation to be about. Some people had made up a project as they worked. While, other groups had everythinhg planned out. There were groups that worked peacefully while other groups worked roughly. Challenges were applied.

Claymation is about teamwork, creativity, and the creation of an istop motion video. Teamwork had applied the most in claymation because in each group was about three to four people, if one peer disagreed then, the team would not be able to do an Idea that most wanted. Creativity wasn’t a challenge for me but for my group this was. My group wasn’t very artistic so they were glad to have me help them out. My group had decided to do a project based on Romeo and Juliet. In the beginning my whole team was sheepish to say their idea but as my team was following up, then we started coming up with the ideas and we had aggreed to the idea about Romeo and Juliet at there kissing scene and juliet starts dancing to music. My group had a wonderful, exciting, brillant idea and we had added a few things as we came closer to our kissing scene. So we had added ideas and made things up as we worked on the project.

There were a lot of ideas that overflowed our minds but obviosley we couldn’t do them all so we sticked to some ideas. But how did we not argue about it to much? Well my team had tooken a vote and if one student disagreed to an idea then we hadn’t done an idea. Some ideas triggered the project and we had to delete some scenes and be kind to the person that created the idea and not be very rude about an added idea. I’d say that my team worked very well together as a team. There were benefits to working in a team. For example we had to be kind, respectful with ideas, and try not missing school very often. There were some problems my team had encountered during the project. When my group had to vote on an idea and not everyone liked a idea, the person that created the idea would get upset and try explaining that it was a good idea when it really wasn’t. My group worked out problems by putting the ideas in but after showing a person that an idea was wrong to put in.

There had been several steps that each group had to do during the creation of the projest. The first step had been the creating of the project. When we had decided to do the kissing scene of Romeo and Juliet. The second step was to get our clay and figure out if there would be enough clay. Which we figured out that we didn’t have enough clay. Third, in our group we had to split up money so that someone in the group could buy the clay for and equal share. Fourth, we had to start creating our claymation figures like the character “romeo” and our character “Juliet”. Fifth, We had two people create the props like the castle, background, and floor setting. My job was to create Juliet, and make the floor props like the pond. Then lat we had tooken pictures of the set picture after picture. We had to move each object very little to have our project look like a show is going out.

There had been so many things my group enjoyed to do during the project. The fun part was creating our characters. We had to create clothes and the 3-d image. My favorite part was creating the nose of Juliet because for me it was fun to push upward on the face to creat a bump to form. So, I had really enjoyed doing that. But, there had been challenges that had occurred during the claymation. There was a point where my group couldnt figure out how to use the camera but then we had figured it out on our own. There were days when the project was going by perfectly. Right after the fixing of the camera was simple. All we had to do was take pictures. So taking the pictures went by very well because it was simple.

If I were to be assigned this project again I would improve a few things. I would improve fairness to everyone like, allowing all ideas come in. This project had been a fun, entertaning project. I thank Mr. Goldstein for all that he had helped our group with.

Bryan C.

The past few weeks, Mr. Goldstein’s class has been working on a claymation. A Claymation is a short 1 minute movie using clay figures. For every second of filming, you take a picture. In class, there are 8 Mac computers. For each computer there is a group. There were 8 groups.

We worked with many programs. For example, iStopMotion Express 2, iMovie, and GarageBand. iStopMotion Express 2 is where we took the pictures of the Claymation. After iStopMotion Express 2, we exported the movie to iMovie. In iMovie, you can add special effects. You can also add credits to your movie. After doing that, we exported the movie to GarageBand. GarageBand is where we added sound and music to our Claymation. You can select different types of beats or music. There are many choices.

Our Claymation is about a family of three Gummy-Bears playing mini-golf. There was a papa bear, mama bear, and little bear. We came up with the idea by thinking about things that would be interesting and entertaining. We had miniature golf courses set up.

Our group worked great together as a team. We all did what we were supposed to do and we never just sat around doing nothing. Working as a team has shown me that you have to trust each other. When you have trust, you can do things easier. We all decided on the name of the Claymation with no arguing. It’s hard to say that there were problems with my team because there really wasn’t. If there were, we would solve them by looking at an alternative and using that instead.

The thing I most enjoyed during the project was using iStopMotion Express 2. I never even knew there was something like that before I used it in Mr. Goldstein’s class. It is amazing how you can see every little tenth of a second in a frame. The cool part of iStopMotion Express 2 was connecting the video camera to the computer. There is a two-way wire that you plug into both the computer and the video camera. It is called “firewire”.

What I found challenging was keeping the camera in place. We kept the camera on a stack of textbooks. If someone was shaking the table or even just having there arm on the table, the camera would probably shake or fall. Then we would have to put it back up again and try to get it in the exact same spot as it was in the last time. Also, the camera would do an auto power-off. Which was very annoying when you were moving each clay figure.

I think the GarageBand went well. We all agreed on the types of music that were put together. We went through GarageBand swiftly and smoothly.

If I did this again, I think I would improve our special effects in iMovie. I think our Claymation was excellent, but I would of liked to use more special effects. The special effects on iMovie are terrific and I think that we could of used more. Also, I think we could try harder to keep hands or other objects out of the Claymation. Of course, this is our first time, but if we did it again I think it would be better if the Claymation had not distractions.

I would like to give a special thanks to Mr.Goldstein for helping me and letting us use these awesome Apple computers. Also, thank you for showing us how to do things we didn’t even know how to do before we cam to technology.

The Claymation project was a great experience and I would definitely want to do it again.

Jacob N.
Per. 6
5-27-11
Our Claymation Project

Our claymaton is called ??? for a reason. It’s about random copyrighted characters doing random stuff in a mini series. Though most of them are copyrighted 2 or 3 of them aren’t. Examples of the non copyrighted ones are the guy in the beginning being cut in half and the sumo wrestler. Charmander and WALL*E are examples of copyrighted ones.
We came up with the idea randomly. The idea started out differently but as we did it, it kind of evolved. I also have to give the credit of the series of mini movies idea to Anush P. who started the actual 1st mini movie just by fooling around.
At first we were working together pretty well but after all our data got deleted (2 minutes of mini movies), the dead line started getting pretty menacing. We also started arguing about who should make which movie and how many movies each of us would have. We were also starting to kill each others clay figures which ended up taking more time than we had.
The steps were modeling clay then making a mini movie in iStopmotion then modeling clay and so on, then we did iMovie to make the title and credits, then we did GarageBand to make the sound track. I enjoyed modeling the clay. I found deciding which characters to use the most challenging. I think the crushing of the people in WALL*E Goes Mad and the eating in The Final Battle went well. I would also like to add that this is not the first claymation i’ve ever made. I’ve actually made about 4 so i’m not new to making a claymation. Please watch our movie. Again it’s called ???. I know you’ll enjoy it.

Anush P.
Period 6
Claymation Project

This is my essay on our claymation project. This essay talks about my claymation project, and what we did to build it.
Our Claymation is a series of little short miniclips. I came up with the idea of our claymation as I was playing with the movie system. While I was playing with the movie system, I decided to make a short minicilp. Then I realized that we could make a series of short miniclips for our movie, since we didn’t have a plan for our movie yet. I decided to go and make a couple of miniclips and put it for our movie.
We had seven movies made, three of the movies I made, the other four Jacob made. The first movie I made, while I was playing with the movie system. It was a guy being cut in half with a lightsaber. Then Jacob went and made a movie with Wall-E crushing people into a cube, a “King of the Tripods Video”, where a clay figure was on a tripod, and was crushed. He also made a claymation involving Pokémon. I then made two movies involving a Sumo Wrestler, “Sumo Wrestler One&Two”. Then he made a Grand Finale movie.
Our group worked okay as a team, the benefits of working as a group is that we can get work done faster. The problems we encountered was that sometimes we didn’t agree on certain things, and we both want to take control of the project.
When we were making the movie, the first thing we did was make clay characters. Then we moved them and took photos after we moved them a little, to give the illusion that they are moving on their own. Then, when we were done filming, we went to iMovie and added a title and credits. Then we went and added music and sound, and we were done with our movie. The parts I enjoyed most in this project was making clay characters. The reason is that I like playing with clay!
I really didn’t find anything in this project challenging; I think the entire movie went well, and I really wouldn’t want to improve upon anything if I did this again.
In conclusion, this essay talks about our claymation project, and what we did to build it.