I’ve created The Sojo Club for kids, families, home schoolers and educators to celebrate the brilliant ideas, thoughts, stories, drawings and animations that kids dream up. As always my focus is on encouraging creativity and avoiding manipulating.
Each course will be delivered in multiple ways:
• In Person
• Via Sojo hosted zoom sessions
&
• Online to be enjoyed whenever suits you
Released module by module to ensure it always feels super easy and fun for you to dive into…. and we’ll celebrate each module with a co-created animation over on the Sojo YouTube channel! 🎉🥳
Share the Sojo love with your home schooling communities.
As a thank you I have added a 40% kick back affiliate link 🔗 for members.
A year ago I was awarded the Arts Council England DYCP funding. This blog post is about all that I got up to, the wonderful surprises, the parts that maybe didn’t work as I’d expected, and how this explorative year has enriched my creative practice forever.
During the pandemic pretty much all of my work became digital and my screen time increased considerably, which decreased my mental and physical wellbeing. This DYCP funding allowed me time to explore a more tangible, hands on, face to face practice, and take an ambitious step in my career towards working in new and more sensory ways.
Stage 1: Stop Motion Animation
I can’t begin to tell you how the Aardman Academy Stop Motion 2 Industry Training course stretched me as an animator. I relished 3 months of Master classes and Q&As with the most inspirational creatives from the stop-motion world, weekly tasks that took me to my edge and helpful support, critique and encouragement from both my mentor, Maraike Kraemer (who has worked on films like Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, as well as series like shaun the Sheep), Stuart Messenger (our incredible course leader), Mark Simon Hewis, head of Aardman Academy and a new giant network of animator peers who have remained a huge wealth of knowledge and support since graduating in July.
Here’s a little taster of where we went with our weekly tasks.
I realise now that using LAVs (Live action video) to inform an animation is the absolute best way for me to add truthfulness and character to a puppets performance, and that this is something I can add into my workshops with children. Until now I would have children creating the characters, storyline, back story, voiceovers, music, sound fx, background and foreground but the physicality of the characters wasn’t something I left to the children. Why not? It is so integral to the story telling.
I learnt, through working with LAVs that we humans do funny things, like when we shift our gaze we blink. I learnt that it looks better to drop some mouth shapes rather than trying to be completely accurate with a lip-sync. I learnt that creating replaceable mouth shapes is WAY speedier than using the sculpt through method.
I also learnt that stop motion would tie me to a screen just as heavily as digital animating. It is a much lengthier process, and what’s more, you have to have controlled lighting and therefore you need to be in a space with no natural light. The saving grace is that you are doing something physical and tangible, sometimes for long stretches of time, between each frame.
Since illustrating Deep in the Whispering Woods: An Imagination Journal for Storytellers by Holly Staniford, I had been hoping to run workshops with children using nature to inspire storytelling, where children could take their dreamt up characters out into the real world and animate them there and then. I was starting to feel like stop motion, in order to be accepted as a piece of art would have too many restrictive elements if I wish to maintain my ethos of fully trusting a child’s creative impulse.
You can imagine how delighted I was when I was introduced, through one of our Q&A sessions to this incredible film by Ainslie Henderson.
The most inspiring, fire in the belly moment of the whole three month course was discovering Ainslie’s work. Here was an artist who wasn’t afraid to break rules in the pursuit of creativity. ‘Shackle’ is a beautiful stop motion film shot outside, regardless of the changes in light. In fact it is made more beautiful because of the changes in light!
His film, Stems is all about his creative process. The VoiceOver is Ainslie speaking his real, spontaneous thoughts accompanied by the most wonderfully appropriate, playful soundtrack which comes to life through the stop motion puppets, playing instruments. Even Ainslie’s voice becomes part of the action as a filter is added and it’s clear it is being played via a dictaphone by one of the little dreamt up characters.
He speaks about creating characters using found objects. From nature or discarded bits and bobs. This is EXACTLY what I wish to be doing with my workshops with kids and here I had a clear example of how wonderful this process can be.
Here is a little peek at part of my final project:
I have loved diving into the world of automata. There is something satisfying about turning a handle and feeling the resistance of an actual mechanism, knowing that your action has created movement and breathed life into a character or scene. My dream is to use automata within a performance or stop motion film that can then be explore and manipulated by kids in the real world having already seen it in action as part of a story.
I began to mix my stop motion characters with simple automata bodies, dreaming up ways that would be simple to implement in workshop environments. The body was drawn on a 300gsm card stock using kid safe felt-tips. The wire used both to attach the feet to, and as the handle, is made of an easily pliable aluminum wire. Kids could easily help to bend the aluminum into the correct shape if given a paper guide to work from. The base is a simple cardboard structure, which I would probably bring pre-assembled to workshops because it’s boring and fiddly!
I am so excited to be adding projection mapping to my skillset. I wish to be able to bring everyday environments to life by wrapping objects in projected animation, created by children. This creates the most wonderfully playful opportunities in performances and immersive exhibitions.
Spending time with Rebecca Smith at the Urban Projections HQ has helped me realise there are even more ways to weave projection mapping into my process than I had first imagined. We started by focusing on a software called Resolume Arena which will be perfect for all that I am dreaming up. Children will be able to trigger animations around an exhibition space using buttons or sensors. Equally Resolume will work as the backbone of performances, triggering both the sound and visuals. But Rebecca also encouraged me to give Tagtool a go, and I’m so pleased I did.
Tagtool runs on iPads and is a software that allows you to animate live. I love the idea of kids be able to imagine something and then to immediately animate it. Tagtool could be the answer, although the animations are relatively crude and limited they give it’s creator an immediate gratification that would be wonderful as part of a larger immersive experience.
I started to think about using Tagtool to bring our environment to life. Giving kids little handheld projectors, inspired by The Colour Foundry, and my desire to use nature to inspire creativity, I thought I was best to switch the mixed reality testing period to working outside in everyday surroundings, streets or gardens. I tested the process on my 78 year old mother to see if she could handle the software.
Projection mapping onto nature then led me on to thinking about augmented reality and how I can bring children stories into any environment using Adobe Aero. I thought about how this might mean I could cross oceans with stories from children in lands afar, sharing characters, cultures, stories and music in a wonderfully immersive, cocreated way.
I started by using a business card as a base for this idea. Thanks to Jacob from Spectrum WASP for this wonderful VoiceOver and artwork.
I then went on to think about how we can reimagine our towns and cities through the eyes of our children. Using Adobe Aero again, I used Mansfield as my testing ground and the help of Chloe from Spectrum WASP for the awesome artwork.
I also started playing with how projection could work within a piece of stop motion. Here I created an aquarium for my stop motion puppet using my coffee table.
I am so excited to pull all of these new skills into my practice.
In January I will be in Costa Rica running my first stop motion workshop where children will build their puppets using clay, plus fallen leaves, twigs, petals and rubbish found on the beaches of Nosara. The children will dream up their characters inspired by their hunt and their environment. I will share these stories in further stop motion workshops back in the UK, using the power of augmented reality.
I will be applying for further funding to work with children to co-create an immersive experience that encompasses stop motion, automata and projection mapping, hopefully teaming up with Spectrum WASP again who have been a joy to work with over the last year.
I will also be teaming up with Rebecca Smith in 2025 to create a mini film using her awesome projector bike and projected animations created by children during my workshops.
Do You Feel Like School Just Isn’t For You? Well, Guess What—You’re Not Alone!
Hey you! Yeah, you—the one who feels like school is a never-ending cycle of boredom, tests, and “Stop doodling on your work!” sound familiar? 🙄
If you’re sitting in class wondering, “Why am I even here?” then you’re my kind of person. I get it. I was that kid too. The one always getting told off for laughing too much, being silly, or doodling on my work instead of focusing on “real” school stuff.
I remember teachers saying, “Errrrrr….Quiet please! You won’t get away with that behavior in the real world, Sophie Johnson-Hill!” Spoiler alert: They were wrong. 😏
Now, all those things that didn’t fit into the school system—my creativity, playfulness, and love for sketching—are exactly what I use every day in my business. So, here’s the good news: There’s hope for those of us who don’t fit in. 💡
Help Me Rewrite the Book on School (Literally)
I’m working on something BIG—a new book about how schools fail us. And this isn’t going to be your average school-related project. Nope. I need YOU, the kids who feel like school doesn’t work for them, to help me figure out how to make it better for people like us.
Forget boring research. This is your chance to be part of something creative, exciting, and—dare I say it—fun. 🤩
What’s in It for You?
• You get to share your voice and ideas about what really doesn’t work in school.
• You’ll be helping me design something that could actually make learning better for people like us.
• You’ll be part of a project that values creativity, playfulness, and thinking outside the box. 🎨🛠️
If you’re struggling to fit in, feel like school isn’t built for you, or just don’t see the point of all those tests, this is for you. It’s time to shake things up and make sure our voices get heard.
Join the Research Squad
If you’re ready to help us rethink school (and break a few rules along the way), then I want to hear from you! Fill out the form below and join our squad of creative thinkers and rule-breakers. 🚀
This wonderful Thunk was one of a series commissioned by Small Steps Big Changes to celebrate chatting with our kids. It was dreamt up by Emily Taylor who is probably my biggest hero of creativity! I have been working with her now for a couple of years on a multitude of projects and have yet to meet her in person, so Sunday feels like a pretty big deal!
This is Emily! Her mum said, “This is the face of one excited little lady after reading your email! How bloody exciting!!”
Big Bad Wolf was created using the audio and artwork from a spontaneous one-to-one play session with a particularly talkative four year old. It is an unscripted, not so delightful tale about a wolf who desperately wants to let a little girl know that he’s a good wolf so he can get inside her house. Animated as part of my research on creating digital animation that upholds a message of ‘the importance of trusting and valuing a child’s creative impulse.’
Work 2
Word Wednesday
This animation was commissioned by The Spark and Leicester Libraries. “Word Wednesdays” was part of the Imaginative Spaces project at The BRITE Centre in Leicester. This brilliant story is written and read by Joseph.
Work 3
Thunk of the Day : My Favourite Year
This Thunk of the Day is one of a series of micro animations celebrating the spontaneous thoughts of children. ‘My Favourite Year’ presents the spontaneous thought, voice and artwork of 5 year old, Emily.
Work 4
The Anxiety Monster
From an arts engagement programme by Jayne Williams and Emma Green, a commissioned work for Fountaindale School, Inspire and County Youth Arts. Five brilliant young minds explore what anxiety means for them.
Work 5
‘I Am From’
“I Am From” an animation I created, commissioned by Sky Arts and funded by Art 50, is showing at the Barbican as part of the OpenFest: Art 50 “I Am From” is an animated version of a poem written by 15 year old Annie, who lives in Londonderry, and gives a little insight into her experience of the world. I was able to have a Skype chat with Annie and her teacher before I started the animation process and (in true Sojo style) I was able to ask for some kids drawings to pop into the film. Annie’s little sister, Beth, did a fantastic job and, hey presto, we have a lovely little collaborative film.
Check out the corker of a Small Steps Big Changes episode. I feel like I’ve put the dream team together with this one. I’m performing along side the immensely talented Kieran Hardcastle, who plays both the Orange Monster and Blue Monster and the awesome Emily Taylor, who has been providing voiceovers for me since she was 4 years old and never fails to delight me with the oomph she puts into each line.
You can find all of my videos for Small Steps Big Changes here.
I have been working with Nicola (Owen’s mum) from OWEN Open Water Education Network to develop an animation and picture book for the OWEN early years programme to help teach little ones about how to stay safe around open water. The THANK YOU FISH Campaign has been set up to fund the development and help get us into schools up and down the country.
Would you like to support us and buy a thank you fish?
Sojo invites you to dive into the imaginations of children through her world of animation. Learn some animation secrets and maybe even have a go yourself!
Big love to the whole of Notts for diving head first into this festival of awesomeness.
I mentioned a few organisations and people who are important to me in this film.
Set up by Charlotte Church, Awen is a democratic school in Cardiff. When I heard her talking about her plans on the Adam Buxton Podcast I knew I had to get involved, either with my animation cap on or as an illustrator or to help the kids to develop fund raising campaigns.
Here’s a bit about my experience so far. Sorry about the choppy, grainy footage. It was a rushed job squashing this together before Christmas got in the way.
sojo animation 