This workshop taught us to express story ideas visually and how to dazzle an audience with moving images. Animation is a booming digital medium that allows for unique artistic expression. In this workshop, we looked at examples of different animation techniques, were introduced to the principles of animation, learned how to give movements meaning and used FlipaClip to create an “anijam” — a collaborative film made by all of us!
Lisa LaBracio is an Animation Director at TED-Ed, the educational initiative of the renowned TED Conferences and TED Talks, whose mission is to capture and amplify the voices of great educators all over the world. As part of their small but wondrous team, Lisa directs, designs and creates handmade animation to bring to life the invaluable lessons that these educators continue to share in order to serve our classrooms and our youth. Education remains the core focus of all of Lisa’s animation work, and she is secretly plotting to teach everyone on the planet to animate.
In 1994, Lisa decided to become an animator. She was 10 years old. While studying traditional animation at the School of Visual Arts in 2003, she began her animation career working as a production artist at Bill Plympton’s animation studio. Lisa began teaching animation workshops after graduating, and in 2011, she traveled to the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya as a visiting teaching artist on behalf of FilmAid International, where she conducted a six-week animation filmmaking workshop. Since then, she has taught over 100 stop-motion workshops in homeless shelters, halfway houses, community centers, as well as in traditional classroom settings.