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.