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Laughing Moon

Kiyoshi Nishimoto, 2000

A yellow circle (the ‘laughing moon’) pops out of a black square, which breaks into several shapes of a puzzle. The shapes move and combine to create characters, vehicles and objects. Although there is no clear narrative as such, this cut-out animation has a fable-like quality: All the creations attempt to possess the moon, but it has a nature of its own and none manage to get the better of it.

A fabulous stimulus for creating your own cut-out animation.

Clip Details

Genre: Abstract

Country of Origin: Japan

Medium/Content: Colour, Sound, Fiction, 2D Animation

Clip Length: 06:00

Age Group: P1-P4

Classroom Activities

  • Listen to all or some of the soundtrack without the images. List all the sounds that can be heard. Get pupils to take it in turns to mine/act out who or what they think is making the sound.
  • Screen the film and freeze frame on different parts of the story. Get pupils to write words/phrases that describe the movement going on (e.g. spinning, jumping, etc).
  • Watch the film, looking out for people or animals. What were they doing? Make a list.
  • Find other film sequences that involve things moving (e.g. a car starting and moving off, a train racing along a track, a skateboard travelling, a bird screeching). Listen to how the sound and action are used together. When are they in sync? When are they not in sync? What difference does it make?
  • Watch a few ‘transformation’ scenes from other films and compare with sequences from 'Laughing Moon'. What techniques or special effects do other films use?
  • Think about how the use of sound in 'Laughing Moon' adds humour. Are the images funny on their own or is it the combination of sound and image? Watch some cartoons that use sound effects to create humour (e.g. Tom and Jerry).
  • Investigate how sound changes the story: select a sequence from the film and ask your pupils to create their own sounds for the actions (with objects or instruments). Now replay the sequence with the class sound effects.
  • Experiment with synchronising sounds to the image. Explore what difference it makes if the sound happens before or after the action.
  • Create a tangram animation of your own using shapes and either photographing them or filming them with a video camera.
  • Create and cut out a giant tangram or small ones for each pupil and explore the different characters they can make. Focus on positional language (e.g. below, at the side, on top, beside, etc).
  • Create voices and thoughts for the characters in the film.

Clip Details

Genre: Abstract

Country of Origin: Japan

Medium/Content: Colour, Sound, Fiction, 2D Animation

Clip Length: 06:00

Education Level: First Level