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KS3 Art: Feet of Song (1988)
 

Explore the human form in movement using this animated short

Main image of KS3 Art: Feet of Song (1988)
 
Author Oliver Naylor
TopicHuman movement
Curriculum links NC KS3 Art and Design

Feet of Song explores the African rhythms of the talking drum and the guitar. The animated stylised figures move beautifully in time with the music, leaping and stamping to the musical score. The bursts of abstraction within the film are often just a few gliding brush strokes cleverly depicting the human form in movement.

This film can be used to explore the human form in movement and, in particular, how movement can be represented in drawing. This activity could come after a series of lessons looking a the human figure or as an introduction to a lesson about creating the sense of movement in drawing.

 

Activity

After watching the film through once, ask students to discuss their initial reactions: What adjectives do they association with the film? How the animation uses colour and simple brush strokes to convey movement.

Move on to introduce them to the idea of gradual movement and frames. Ask students to create their own storyboards of a figure either waving, walking, jumping, kicking or dancing (to be sketched in pencil). This could be built upon to allow students to create basic concertina 'books'

Students should then work in groups to assess their own or each others' work by looking at whether movement has been successfully conveyed. Students might assess their own and others' by finding, for each piece of work, an example of 'what went well' (w.w.w) and deciding how it could have been 'even better if'...(e.b.i).

 
 

Some more ideas

  • A concertina book could be used as the starting point for a unit of work leading up to a basic Flash animation final piece.
 
Video Clips
Complete film (5:27)

Related Films and TV programmes

Thumbnail image of Feet of Song (1988)Feet of Song (1988)

Read more about this film

See also

Thumbnail image of KS5 Art: Feet of Song (1988)KS5 Art: Feet of Song (1988)

An introduction to stop frame animation