I’m so excited to see what the students at ALBA were able to make with the set they created. Here’s their amazing trailer for the Maskoon Film Festival (2018)
Teaching Experience
This summer I went back to Beirut for a month and had an amazing time teaching at the Deutsche Internationale Schule and at l'Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts. Having such drastically different age and skill sets to approach was both challenging and rewarding. On one hand I had 11 to 12 year-olds whom I had to completely introduce to the world of Stop-Motion animation and on the other 20-something old masters students working on a more elaborate project.
Working with children was really refreshing because it allows so much freedom to really have fun. Now I'm not going to lie, I was drenched in paint, putty and glue but it's really one of the reasons I fell in love with Stop-Motion animation because you get your hands dirty (and shoes, and hair, and clothes...). It was really inspiring to see their reactions when, after the "boring" animation part, they saw their final little clip.
At l'Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, I had the chance to really go into more advanced talks about materials, textures and set design. They worked on creating a beautiful realistic mountain and were really motivated and innovative. Below are the images of the making of from sketches on cardboards to the final set.
Final set by Bernard Abou Assi and Dana Ismail.
Various Animations
Throughout my year at ECIB, we practised animating a lot with small exercises. We focused a lot on lip syncs, specific actions, cycles as well as creating scenes with bits of audios. Here are the ones I did that I liked most.
2.5D Stop Motion PAPER PUPPET
Meet Frank, my banjo player paper puppet. We created this puppet for a TV3 segment at ECIB. The main theme was creating an extremely lightweight puppet, capable to be held down using needles even on extreme poses. For my character, I wanted to create a simple body shape and stick to raw materials, in this case cardboard newspaper and crepe paper.
The rig, consisting of only aluminium wire, is basically glued to the body with a glue gun.
Instagram Feed
I thought I'd add my Instagram feed where I basically post works in progress, updates and small exercises.
Making of Maskoon Trailer
Making of the Maskoon Stop Motion Trailer (2016) at ALBA. Making of by Amandine Brenas
Making Of Cercles Brisés
This is a short Making of Cercles Brisés my end of year film at ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts)
Making of Teshwish
5-day Stop-Motion Workshop at ALBA supervised by Regina Pessoa and Abi Feijó. Making of تشويش - Teshwish (2015) and other shorts. Making of by Amandine Brenas.