A Beginner’s Lesson on Stop Motion Animation at SICFF 2017

Stop motion, the animation technique in which the subject is manipulated in between photographs to give the appearance of movement once the frames are spliced together, was the subject of discovery at a workshop hosted by Sharjah International Children Film Festival 2017 (SICFF 2017).

At the helm was 24-year-old animator, photographer and stop motion artist from Bahrain, Kawthar Adnan, a web media graduate and self-proclaimed nerd who loves computers and media technology. From doughnuts to fashion illustrations, keychains, flower petals, simple pencil sketches, jelly beans, diamonds, and anything else one can think of – the young animator has a knack for bringing the most unassuming objects to life. 

“The UAE is very supportive of me, and I have conducted several workshops here. I love to work with children because they are inquisitive, they ask questions and possess a great spirit of adventure,” she said.

“In college, my favourites were the design courses, which comprised 3D, animation, website creation. I used all my academic learnings and mixed them with stop motion – one of my favourite forms of animation. I believe my creations are very different from what people generally see. My Instagram posts attracted a lot of attention and landed me projects with big companies like Mackintosh, Disney, and others,” Adnan added.

She conducted a simple and engaging workshop on stop motion animation to introduce children to this fascinating media art. The result of the exercise would be an animated run cycle of a horse. A six second movie of a galloping horse was created by young participants, who first painted the horse’s run cycle with acrylic. The second step was to place these painted images one after another on a black background to create and click photos of each movement. The trick to creating the perfect montage of movement, Adnan said, was to place the images on a fixed frame to avoid significant changes in the positioning of the sketches.  

In the end, the pictures taken by the workshop participants were put together as a stop motion animation video on an easy stop motion software and the result – a horse galloping away to glory!

Kawthar’s advice to children: “I like to experiment. I use leaves, fashion products, food, and other products. All my videos are therefore different despite using the same animation techniques. The diversity of the materials I use leads to the creation of a unique end product. I encourage children to experiment, to try to new things because you never know what they may be good at.”

SICFF is the first-of-its-kind film festival in the country and region. It seeks to make children and young people media literate, nurture their talents and present the in filmmaking for, by and about children and young people, right here in Sharjah.

The fifth edition of SICFF is hosting 50 training workshops covering an array of topics on cinema and the visual arts. Taking place at the Al Jawaher Reception & Convention Centre throughout the duration of the festival, the sessions will continue once it has concluded, with the programme carrying on in Kalba, Dibba Al Hisn and Khorfakkan from October 15-31 and in Al Thaid, Al Madam, Al Hamyria and Al Bataeh from November 5-16.

Organised by FUNN – Sharjah Media Arts for Youth and Children, SICFF 2017 is featuring a cinematic extravaganza of 124 films from 31 countries, along with seminars and appearances by celebrated industry professionals.