(upbeat instrumental music)
- Hi, I'm Jiéyì, I am an artist
and a teaching artist, and that means
that I get to share the artwork
I make with people like you.
I like making art a lot of different ways.
Sometimes I dance, sometimes I play with technology,
but one material I really love working with is paper.
So today we're gonna work on some paper magic,
and we're gonna tell stories using paper.
Theater and animation are pretty similar in a lot of ways
and in this project we're going to make
all of our actors and our props out of paper.
Sometimes when I do this project
I use those pieces at the end to make stop-motion animation.
So I'll tell you a little bit about that at the end,
but mostly we're just gonna be focusing
on telling stories with paper.
So to make your piece, you wanna start
by coming up with a storyboard.
So, that is almost like a comic
where you figure out what's gonna happen in your story.
So I'm gonna go ahead and use a pencil and a ruler,
but it's okay, you don't need straight lines
to draw out a grid on here.
(upbeat instrumental music)
So on here I drew out some big rectangles
and some small rectangles.
I have some small rectangles underneath
so I can add some notes if I want to.
So I am thinking about a story
that is of a creature in a boat.
Sort of like a Charmander-like creature
with a fire on its tale.
And I'm thinking that Charmander is sailing in the boat
and then its tail accidentally catches the boat on fire.
And so the boat explodes in flames,
and as the boat is breaking apart there're some pieces
of wood in the boat and Charmander grabs
onto one of those pieces.
And he uses it to float safely to an island,
but it turns out that that island
is actually the back of a turtle.
And that's as far as I have with my story.
But I'm gonna go ahead and draw out what those images
might look like.
So I'm gonna start with my boat,
(upbeat instrumental music)
in the first panel.
(pencil scratching)
I have Charmander and my boat in the ocean.
And so in the next panel I have to think
about what happens next, right?
So I think for me, what happens next is that
the sail catches on fire.
(upbeat instrumental music)
So in this panel I have my boat with Charmander, the sail,
the sail's on fire, and there's some big exclamation points
in the background.
In the next one, I think that what I wanna do
is the boat falling apart.
(upbeat instrumental music)
So, I drew Charmander in the water with some pieces
of the boat and some smoke.
Next I am going to draw Charmander...
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holding on to a piece of wood and floating along.
I'm gonna draw a line just 'cause I wanted to show
that Charmander is moving forward.
In the next one I'm gonna have Charmander...
(upbeat instrumental music)
(pencil scratching)
still floating in the water,
but now there is a island coming into view.
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And so now Charmander is on the island,
there's a tree on the island.
And then, in the next scene we wanna find out
that it's a turtle, right?
So, maybe...
(pencil scratching)
the turtle starts to emerge.
(upbeat instrumental music)
I put a little question mark there,
'cause Charmander is pretty surprised about this.
And I think that's what I have for now.
So this is what I'm gonna work with.
So now, I have to think about
what sort of parts I'm gonna make.
I can think about props and I can think about background,
I can think about character.
So I know that I need to draw Charmander for sure,
I also want to draw a boat and a sail.
I need to draw the ocean and some waves.
I need to draw some fire.
I need to draw pieces of the boat,
and a turtle, and a tree.
And all those different parts
I'm going to draw separately; that way, I can move them.
So I'm gonna go ahead and start,
and I wanna start
by drawing my character.
(upbeat instrumental music)
And after I draw everything in with pencil
I can go ahead and color it.
Color pencils work, markers work, crayons work.
I already started on this earlier.
So I'm gonna pull out some of the pieces I worked on.
So in here I have the beginning of Charmander-like creature.
It's not exactly Charmander. Our waves, part of the boat,
and I have another piece of boat here with some fire
that needs to be finished.
So I'm gonna keep working from these pieces.
I also have some pieces that are already cut out.
So I have a turtle, and a tree, and some waves.
I also have an even bigger island,
so I might use part this too.
This island is yellow instead of green,
so maybe I want to color it in,
or I could use this for a different story.
(upbeat instrumental music)
I also want some pieces of the boat,
that are just, sort-of, in pieces, right?
So I'm gonna go ahead and draw some pieces of boat.
(upbeat instrumental music)
So this is a whole boat, some pieces of boat, some fire.
I have another piece of boat over here and some fire,
I started some smoke, I'm gonna add a little bit more smoke.
(marker cap snapping)
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(marker cap snapping) (marker thudding)
And then, let's see, what else do I need?
So I can look here and see, okay.
So I have my boat, I have my character.
I need to finish drawing my character.
This one's a little bit big though.
So I think that I might finish this character instead.
I have my smoke and my pieces here.
I have some waves.
So I think what I need are some exclamation points,
a question mark, a smaller creature.
(upbeat instrumental music)
And now is the part where you cut out your pieces.
(scissors thudding)
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And I do have these pieces of boat
and I think I wanna add some char to them as well
so that we know that this is after.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(marker cap snapping)
Okay, so maybe we can begin our story.
I'm also gonna cut this just...
(paper tearing)
so we have this piece, it's a little bit burned.
(marker cap snappign)
(upbeat instrumental music)
So this is my stage.
I have my characters on stage,
and I have my storyboard over here.
And my story begins in the ocean.
There were many waves that day.
And a creature, who is not Charmander,
but was very similar to Charmander,
was taking a ride on a sailboat.
So Charmander was riding along in the boat.
But, unfortunately when Charmander walked across the boat
Charmander's fiery tale started to catch the boat on fire.
First there was just a little bit of fire,
and then suddenly, there was fire everywhere!
Charmander was so surprised by all that fire,
but as quickly as the fire came, the fire started to go out.
And in the water there were...
broken pieces of the boat.
And smoke from the dying flames.
And Charmander was still in the water
and found a piece of boat to cling on to.
And so Charmander swam.
Charmander swam, and swam, and swam, and passed by the boat.
And kept swimming until...
it saw what looked a lush island
with a tree, and single Charmander-sized house.
And so Charmander swam to shore,
and Charmander was so excited
to be on the shore and to be safe, and out of the ocean.
But this island was actually the back of a turtle.
And the turtle started to move,
and go on its own journey.
To be continued.
So this is my story that I've told with pieces of paper.
In it all of our actors are pieces of paper,
all of our props are pieces of paper.
You can also tell the story through animation.
So that's probably the next step that I would do
is to turn this into a stop-motion animation project.
Stop-motion animation is when you take pictures,
and you take so many pictures in a row
that when they play it together they become a video.
There's lots of different apps for a phone
or for a tablet that you can use,
some of them are free and some of them cost money.
And I'm not gonna show you how to use
any of those apps today,
but if you wanna try it I recommend
looking, just searching in the App Store to see
what kind of apps are available, and trying it out.
Thank you so much for playing with me today.
I would love to see what kind of stories
you come up with, thank you.
I'm Jiéyì and I love working with paper.
(upbeat instrumental music)