Hernando De Soto Claymation

Hernando De Soto

As they neared the island of Cuba, Hernando De Soto listened to the waves lapping on the side of his boat.

Some of these scenes were illustrated in the short film animation, “ Hernando De Soto Claymation.” My partner and I created this short film for our American Studies class. This animation is about the travel and life of Hernando De Soto discovering what we now call America. It includes the landing on Cuba, Indian attacks, the voyage, the discovery of the Mississippi River, his death, and much more. It gives a fun, new way to learn about European explorers. This project had fun parts, difficult parts, and I learned a lot making it.


The best part of creating this short film was shooting the scenes and working with the audio. I loved shooting the scenes with my partner because we both have a sense of humor, and I think that it really came out in this film. It was fun moving the clay people which ever way we wanted them to. It was like we were in control when Hernando was actually exploring America. It was also fun experimenting with the audio. You can work with special effects, music, and your own voices. I was the narrator and my partner was the voice of the characters. It was very hard to concentrate because of all the background noise. Many times we got tongue tied, and then we would have to start all over again. We goofed around a bit on the audio, but eventually we got it just right.


One of the most difficult parts of this project was keeping the clay people standing up, and figuring out the timing for downloading the pictures. Keeping the clay people standing up, and in one position, was challenging. As you may know clay doesn’t stick easily to paper. We had to hold the people in position until the last minute before the picture was taken. We used toothpicks for support. It worked pretty well, but it did not always work out. It took a while to finish all the scenes, but eventually we got it just right. The timing was hard to because some of the clips were downloaded with the Kens Burn Effect. The Kens Burn Effect is when the clip zooms in every time you play it. So when we tried to play it, it got all jumpy. So we had to re- load the clips all over again. Which took up a lot of our time. Finally we got it right, and it didn’t look that bad.

One of the most important things I learned while creating this short animation was the fact that Hernando De Soto discovered the Mississippi River. If he had not come over from Spain to discover new lands, we might not have ever known about this major land mark. Without his voyage we would not have had the many resources we get from the Mississippi, like boat and freight transportation, and energy supplying dams. He discovered the Mississippi on May 8, 1541 and he died in it on May 21, 1542. It was one, if not the biggest, discovery of his life. He was the first European ever recorded to see the Mississippi River. He may have been a ruthless leader to his men, but he must have done a pretty good job to stumble across the fourth longest river in the world.

So, as you can see, this project had it’s ups and downs, and I learned much more about the settlement of our nation. Hernando De Soto must have been a smart and brave man to explore an unknown land. In the process I learned more about the internet, and more about film making. I learned that the Mississippi River was discovered by a European, that fun projects still have their ups and downs, but more importantly... I learned how to handle clay! I love to work on hands on projects, so this was the perfect assignment for me and my partner. I hope we will have more projects like this within the rest of the year.



By: Hannah