It was back to the Ugly Duckling pond for this movie (we still had the set). This was a ‘group story’,constructed to include all the elements demanded by members of the Year 10 group. So we had it all; pollution, crime, aliens, teenage angst, and yes...some romance.
MOVIES and TRAILERS
All done in one double lesson. A group of Yr 9s, one Mavica still camera, one tripod and 4 floppy disks. Two students took the individual shots and turned Charlie’s head. The rest of the group each made an animal and brought it up to pinch some food off Charlie. The result was about 125 still shots. We played them through a slide show program at full speed and we had a movie.
Our first animation using a camcorder and some proper stop-frame software . It is tricky to make Plasticine figures that don’t bend at the knees as you try to move them - so we decided to do creatures which could just slide along.
A rostrum was set up in the corner of the art room so that a few students at a time from each class could work on the filming. The camcorder was connected to the PC with a FireWire and the images captured using the stop-motion facility on Adobe Premiere.
You are a swan
Working at home and in lunchtimes at school, Alex completed the whole thing in 4 weeks including recording his classmates playing the various parts and searching the internet for suitable music .
Alex had written a script as part of his Yr.10 english work, and it seemed like a possible idea for animation. Drawing directly onto computer with Complete Animator proved perfect for producing stark and scary images for this story.
I am so lonely
I am so ugly
I am so ugly
A group of Year 10 students asked if they could do a ‘proper movie’... You know with robbers and car chases. So we made up a story about a policeman who kept crashing his car and some robbers who weren’t very good either.
Some motion in the chases was filmed stop –frame, but most was video footage with the 2D cars tied in place with fine fishing line and the painted background pulled along underneath.
A lot of fun was had recording the dialogue and also making and finding the sound effects to go with the action.The lad who played the superintendent was so proud of the movie he took a video along to be played at the cinema at the family’s regular holiday camp.
One student in the group particularly enjoyed drawing cartoon style figures. He drew the main characters. These were cut out and placed on painted backgrounds for the various scenes and filmed with the camera fixed overhead.
Stuart was into Yr 11 by the time he completed Crime and Punishment. Like any good thriller it has a complex plot but bags of atmosphere. There is murder intrigue and international blackmail, but in the nick of time agent ‘Knuckles’ saves the world from the evil ‘Claw’ and his deadly Doomsday device.
After weeks of animating on his own at home and at school, the most difficult part was organising his classmates to record their parts for the soundtrack. They all wanted the starring roles.
This ‘stillmation’ was made as an afterthought, using pictures and salt dough models students had made after listening to Treasure Island.
Perhaps a bit rough and ready, but an excellent way of making a quick movie and presentation of kids work, especially for those who might not have the concentration for a longer project.
The figures and the backgrounds were painted separately and then pasted together using Photoshop Elements. Then we recorded some dialogue and sound effects to suit. Put it all in the time line, and there’s the movie.
This beautiful animation is made up almost entirely of a sequence of still images with a soundtrack of voices and music. There are a few animated clips created in Flash where figures move across the screen.
A Yr 10 group had studied the ‘fairies story’ of Midsummer Nights Dream with their english teacher. She also made a sound recording of these students speaking the parts in their own words.
The students drew and painted their own characters as well elements for the background ( trees, flowers. props). The teacher photographed all of the various paintings and pasted the images together using photoshop.
The background music was created by the same students in their music lesson.
We started off filming everything by the usual stop-frame method, click, move, click move etc. However, when it came to the spaceship we discovered some ultra fine fishing line to pull it upwards while we videoed the action. When we tried the same thing with the ducks and the lorry it was much quicker to do and all much smoother. Is this cheating ?
The movie is predominantly a ‘stillmation’ of images and backgrounds There is a final clip of animation done in Flash as David Beckham saves the day with a well placed shot into Dr Z’s rocket boosters.
This Yr 10 group had previously made a series of model figures using plastic pop bottles covered with paper, wool,and other materials. Using them for an animation was a way of displaying them.
A bizarre story was concocted to include all of the unlikely celebrities and other characters the group had made.The models were photographed against a blue background which was removed using the magic wand facility in Photoshop Elements. The characters were then placed on backgrounds the students found and saved from the internet.
A Yr 10 group went to Wolverhampton Art Gallery and recorded interviews with staff and visitors as part of their english work. When they later watched some clips from Aardman Creature Comforts they could not resist having a go. .
The students made the animals and took still photos of the creatures opening and closing mouths. These were then arrange on a time line over the sound track. Aardman of course do the full range of lip and mouth movements, but our ‘cheat’ works very well.
This started off as a short stop motion animation of skaters on a pond (an old whiteboard). The idea was that skating would be much easier to achieve than walking. One student happened to make Wallace and Grommit figures and it snowballed from there. Wallace would have to invent a machine and it would all have to go wrong.
Everything was filmed and photographed against a blue screen with the background
added later using ‘chroma key’ in the editing. The Skate-
SKATE-O-MATIC
The story tells of a group of scientists trapped on an island where dinosaurs of every sort have come back to life. He uses a whole range of classic cinematic devices , close up, silhouette, perspective and balances intense action with slower scenes of and thought and dialogue.
The Island is spectacular animation by a Yr 9 student who has developed a particular talent for using Complete Animator. Drawing directly onto the computer with a mouse, Jack took over 6 months to produce all of the 2500 images that are used in the film.
These Yr 10 students had observed nature and written their Haiku, but then they returned to photograph what they had seen. With a recording of their readings and some Japanese music found on the internet the effect was so much more dramatic.
A group of Yr 9s from the Wakeman School Shrewsbury produced this animation with their science teacher. The group are all members of a rock band and the story is all about the struggles of a young band becoming famous. And the music....? ....well I think that was the whole point.
Trailer 02:17
Full Movie 04:50
Indian Animals – a superb composite of animation produced in Flash from Yr 4 children at Morda Primary School.
You don’t necessarily need models or drawings. Here are some examples of animation used to bring objects to life.
Stuart developed an ingenious way of making expressive figures and faces from geometric shapes in Complete Animator.
Trailer 02:23 Full Movie 06:42
Trailer 02:48 Full Movie 13:04
Trailer 03:43 Full Movie 15:31
Trailer 02:25 Full Movie 13:04
Trailer 02:08 Full Movie 04:52
Trailer 02:32 Full Movie 08:40
Movie 00:59
Trailer 03:30 Full Movie 18:20
Trailer 03:01 Full Movie 08:57
Trailer 02:55 Full Movie 06:38
Trailer 02:28 Full Movie 05:56
Trailer 03:59 Full Movie 15:50
Trailer 01:22 Full Movie 02:36
Movie 03:00
THE GREAT ESCAPE
Movie 01:07
MOUSE ATTACK
Movie 01:03
ANIMATION WORK BY STUDENTS AT PRIMARY SECONDARY AND SPECIAL SCHOOLS
A great project for younger kids trying out Complete Animator. The individual animations are combined in a grand show.
ANIMATING OBJECTS
These things really do come alive , when we are not looking, I know, I’ve seen them.
Using animation to make a presentation of art work by Yr.5s. Yes, we had been watching ‘Finding Nemo’. Each pupil created a fish and an element for the sea bed, Flash was used to make the fish move across the screen.
Worthy of Monty Python, this stand-
It doesn’t have to be a story, just celebrate something you like.
