claymation kids ACMI

ACMI: Family Claymation Day

The ACMI Family Claymation workshop invites families to sculpt a clay character and watch it come to life using stop motion.

When: 11am – 4pm, various dates during school holidays, visit the ACMI website to check for the next workshop

Where:  ACMI, Federation Square, MELBOURNE

Cost: Adult $50, Child $45, ACMI Member $44.  Suits children aged 5+, all children must be accompanied by a paying adult.

We attended this class towards the end of the summer school holidays and we swapped Immi’s brother Charlie for one of Immi’s friends – which in hindsight was a wonderful thing (a number of factors at play here: 1. Charlie’s not so great at sitting still for long periods, 2.  after a month of one on one time with his sister the novelty of sibling time had worn off, 3. as an avid fan of technology his over enthusiasm could have lead to him being a little too pushy/grabby/loud and 4. I had a migraine overnight which was only just starting to shift so my negotiation skills and patience {required constantly with my 7-year-old boy} was somewhat dulled – obviously, this last point was not planned!).

So Mia (aged 10) joined us and we had a lovely time (and after my second dose of panadol and a coffee I came good).

The two girls were very capable of taking in all the instructions and managing the technology with minimal input from me.  The nature of this particular workshop requires the need for an accompanying parent/adult (and if a whole day doing a kids workshop is not your thing, for the 8+ crowd there is a Kids Claymation workshop that is a drop and leave scenario from 10am-4pm, check the ACMI website in the lead up to school holidays for details).

Given our running sheet for the day was pretty jam packed – we did have quite a lot to achieve in a short period – adult input was essential to keep everyone up to speed.  From my perspective, it was pretty clear on what the focus needed to be – and so I was able to steer the girls away from overly detailed model making, that wasn’t necessarily required, and lengthy discussions on what the plot might be (and also the ambitiousness of said plot!).

Our workshop included about 10 families and was lead by Kate and Arieh.  The class was really informative and I felt like we were having a rather privileged insight into behind the scenes at both ACMI and also into the world of animators.  Kate and Arieh were on hand throughout keeping us on track and helping us solve problems – but they certainly didn’t hijack our stories or model making, just made suggestions with animating technique and helped us with the technology.

We had three breaks throughout the day but otherwise the pace was cracking.  We actually went a bit overtime, not finishing until about 4.20pm.

With all our new found skills I know that we could definitely recreate what we learnt in the class at home… it could come in handy for a school project down the track!  And the girls loved showing off the final film which everyone in the room had a hand in creating.

Next time Charlie you can definitely come!