Sculpting stories: Students create stop-motion video with clay figurines

Manteca High art teacher Bobby Latona created his own clay sculptures as an example for his students. (Alyssa Fuentes)

By ANDREW ROBISON
The Tower

Spring is in the air, but inside Bobby Latona’s classroom on the campus of Manteca High School, there’s a very distinct Christmas feel.

Check that: A very distinct The Nightmare Before Christmas feel.

In his first year on campus, Latona, a teacher whose artistic sense has been influenced by his world travels, has introduced his students to street art, ceramics and now the world of stop-motion animation, using clay figurines.

“I got into stop motion in the 1990s,” he said. “I remember watching The Nightmare Before Christmas and thinking this is so cool. There’s an interesting and unique aesthetic to stop motion, so when I saw these films, I always thought it would be awesome if I could bring that into the classroom.”

There is a lot more work besides constructing these clay stop-motion sculptures. Students actively improve on the many skills they’ve learned in other departments and from other teachers when they work on a project like this, which makes Latona’s class so much more than just an ordinary art class.

His clay unit is cross-curricular.

Students in Bobby Latona’s Art class at Manteca High School sculpt figures out of wire and clay as part of their stop-motion activity. (Alyssa Fuentes)

“The students are developing a variety of skills,” he said. “It’s cross-curricular. To write a good story and a good script, that plays into English and Language Arts classes. Planning stories and drawing out story boards, that’s similar to what you might do in a film class.”

Despite the complexity of stop motion, sophomore Vince Almeida says the added work, like story boarding and writing and then sculpting, makes the final product that much “sweeter.” When it finally starts to come together, when it finally starts to come to life, the hours of planning and preparation seem so miniscule.

“The most challenging part of stop motion is planning everything out and story boarding,” Almeida said. “The most rewarding aspect I would say is when all your hard work starts paying off and you start seeing results. These projects can be very time consuming, but it just makes the result that much sweeter. Stop motion movies tend to take up to multiple years to shoot.”

Students in Bobby Latona’s Art class at Manteca High School sculpt figures out of wire and clay as part of their stop-motion activity. (Alyssa Fuentes)

The class will condense this process down to one-minute videos.

Latona explained the process behind time management: “The projects we’re making require 15-25 photos per frame, so by the end of the project, they’ll have thousands of photos to put together and create these animations. It is time consuming in our 90-minute classes, then I’ll check in after two weeks and see where everyone is at.”

Latona has had a passion for clay since he was a collegiate student at Cal Poly Humboldt. Today, he shares that love with his students at Manteca High.

“In college, I would make these crazy lamp fixtures and huge sculptures,” he said. “It’s hard to pinpoint just one. I keep developing my skills as a teacher and as an artist, and as I work on more stuff, it’s exciting because there’s so much to be learned in ceramics and art in general.”

Manteca High art teacher Bobby Latona created his own clay sculptures as an example for his students. (Alyssa Fuentes)