The Lego stop motion movie

I have been feeling anxious about how much of Josiah's time the Lego stop motion movie project continues to take up. I'd really like his time to be freed up again for other activities ... maths work, for example! Then, today, I was making a note of the various language work the kids have done in the past few months and I remembered that the stop motion movie had involved Josiah (who hates writing) independently producing a significant piece of writing: the script! For the last few days, Josiah has spent an hour or two each day adding special effects ("laser shots") to the battle scene photos; he still has 28 photos to go, poor kid. Given that that means the movie will continue to take up Josiah's time for another week, I think it would be worth my identifying what I see as valuable in the exercise, just for my own peace of mind, so I can relax about Josiah not having as much time for other work. So ... the Lego stop motion movie has involved:

• Story planning, including creation of characters.


• Script writing.


• Artistic arrangement: setting each scene with Lego pieces.


• Photography.


• Precision, and attention to detail: for a stop motion movie to look reasonably fluid, the movement of objects from one frame to the next must be small and uniform.


• Sound recording.


• Team work: Josiah and Tessa took the photos together and recorded the dialogue together. There were several altercations triggered by artistic differences, which the children negotiated their way through.


• Patience!! The time Geoff sat on Jabba's sail barge and it had to be rebuilt! And I think the photos for more than one scene had to be taken twice because the lighting or something else wasn't consistent the first time.


• Editing: looking at each scene with the photos run together to identify where there were superfluous shots and where there were gaps that needed filling. In a couple of cases, the cast had to be reassembled for extra shots.


• Working with software for manipulating graphics: adding in special effects and cutting carefully around objects so that they could be displayed against a different background.


• Perseverance: sticking at the boring jobs like adding laser shots to photo after photo.


• Self-motivation: although Geoff and I have helped when asked (Geoff more than me), Josiah has received no prompting from us - the driving force has been entirely his.
  

Okay, I'm feeling better about all this