12 Frames Per Second

An amazing example of stop motion techniques and art

2010-07-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

This video speaks for it's self, it is huge, stop motion on a whole new scale. Fantastic creativity and with elements of Banksy thrown in towards the end. This technique and approach could be scaled down in the art room or if working on a graffiti wall.

Genre, Genre, Genre.

2010-06-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

This wonderful short adaptation of Humpty Dumpty was made in a day by English Teachers at Saint Lawrence School in Bradford On Avon. They took the Nursery Rhyme and gave it a totally new look and feel by focusing on using strong visuals and giving it a new treatment.

The two teachers treated the film with ingredients associated with classic French Film Noir. These ingredients are;

Black and White look
Slightly out of focus shot at beginning
Camera at strange angles, off centre
Close ups - hinting at the characters pain
A dark story/adaptation
French dialogue
Tragic sound track.

The English department at the school will be trying this next year with year 8's (13 yr olds) Taking a Nursery Rhyme, giving it a treatment, studying genre and rather then creating storyboards, students will make animations based on their ideas.

Brilliant! Enjoy the film, they really enjoyed making it.

Umpty- The movie from Animation For Education on Vimeo.

Mixing it up!

2010-05-24T02:34:00.000-07:00

This colourful, short animation was made in only fifteen minutes, by an art teacher wanting a visual teaching resource - explaining the rules of mixing primary colours to her students.

This is a perfect example of teachers using stop motion animation as part of their professional toolkit-to inspire students, bring areas of learning to life with visual simplicity and develop new skills.

This fun, unique approach to creating individual teaching resources, will contribute towards a personal teaching style, her students will warm to and remember for a long time.

Also a fun educational teaching resource suited to VLEs, handheld devices and blogs!

Mixing colours from Animation For Education on Vimeo.

The importance of using correct punctuation

2010-04-29T04:08:00.000-07:00

The following was made by teachers for use as a teaching resource on a recent teacher training event in Devon. The short film simply highlights the importance of using correct punctation when playing Pacman with your Granny and was made in a few hours using Zu 3D animation software.

They have used replacement animation on the Pacman. One model with mouth open, another with the mouth shut. This technique is common in the animation industry and helps speed up the process.

Zu 3D animation software is a newbie on the block, designed with the help of professional animators, it has some great pro features, as well as being able to add sound and titles within the application. Good education price too. More info here.

Let's eat Grandma from Animation For Education on Vimeo.

Never green screen with a frog

2010-04-17T01:53:00.000-07:00

This fun film was made by teachers from Elm Park Primary school on the recent ATI. (Apple Teachers Institute) Made in about 5 hours, after careful planning, it high-lights the pro's and con's of working with green screen in animation. Works and looks great in full screen mode.

The film industry use green and blue as their chroma key, because actors (Human not frogs) don't have any green and blue colour hues in their skin tones. So with animation projects, technically you could use any colour background to key-out.

Tips for working with a Green Screen;

1-Use green paper with a matt finish from the art department.

2-Make sure it's crease free.

3- Don't include any green in the models that you intend to animate, best stay away from some yellows that have green hue connections.

Lighting is key!

4- If you can, use a white room with no windows or a blackout, then use ordinary classroom lights. Mixing the light source can cause problems with some cameras and software. Light has different colour temperatures, daylight is blue and florescent can be more orange.

5- If you can't blackout windows and have to use daylight (The above film was made this way) Choose a location where there is a good natural light source. BUT not if there are clouds being blown in front of the sun or trees moving in the wind. Essentially the best natural light is flat light (a cloudy day) with an even light. Strong sun can cause harsh shadows which you want to avoid. A room that is north facing and doesn't see the sun direct would also work well.

6- Keep models 5 inches away from the green screen, so shadows don't fall on the green screen. Shadows will mean a slightly different shade of green which will result in a messy outcome.

Dans ma trousse

2010-03-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

Another inventive fun MFL animation made by teachers during my residency in Gateshead. I like the simple approach to pimping the contents of the pencil case, a quick and effective way of creating easy to animate characters. Made in a day, the song gave focus to the idea.

Look out for special guest, Pritney the glue stick!

Man on wire- The animation

2010-03-04T11:16:00.000-08:00

A lovely animation, made by two teachers, they arrived at the course prepared with the idea of animating the song Philippe Petit, we decided card cut outs would be easier to animate, with a mix of plasticine. The film was made as part of a week long residency for Gateshead education authority, during the four days, I worked with both teachers and students. In total 22 films were made and on Friday the schools involved will be able to watch their films on the big screen, at the Odeon cinema in Gateshead. More examples form the week to follow.

London's Burning- The making of.

2010-02-01T02:52:00.000-08:00

London's burning for KS 2. Animating a historical topic area is a great way for students to cement and consolidate their learning and understanding of the topic. Cram in facts and information on location, number of deaths, when, etc.

I have also included a behind the scenes, "The making of" clip. Shows how the teachers without their music trolley used technology and a crisp wrapper to create a simple sound track.

On the iPhone he used the app Ocarina for the music and she uses a crisp wrapper for the sound of fire ripping through the buildings. Using a plastic wrapper is apparently the method used in films during the 1940' - 1960's to create the sound of fire, very effective. The sound is captured straight into the laptop with the built in webcam on a HD webcam.

Of Mice and Men - Three short scenes

2010-01-25T12:55:00.000-08:00

These three short extracts were made by year nine students at the Newline Learning Academy in Kent. The students did a great job of adapting their understanding of this fantastic classic in just one day. Each group of five students chose a scene from the book they wanted to bring to life.

They were able to choose any scene from the story and all four groups veered towards the most dramatic scenes, involving plenty of conflict. This enabled the students to explore both the character's inner conflict and the external conflict situations the character's were in.

These two short extracts really demonstrate how animation, like drama, is a great way of exploring in detail the essence of a scene or a character.

Enjoy the clips.

Working with sound- POV. Keep it painfully simple. Part 1

2010-01-20T01:08:00.001-08:00

My latest project is in Devon with a small group of Primary teachers on stage two of the Persistence Of Vision Project. Briefly this project aims to use animation in a variety of forms with different education authorities to explore poetic themes and poetry at both key stages in Primary. Running over a year there will be four training sessions for teachers from five schools within Devon.

Yesterday's session focused on two areas;

1- Group discussion and evaluation of their first attempt of animation with classes.

2- Working with sound.

In this blog I'm going to share the excellent work the teachers created and elements of the approach to achieving the outcomes in a short space of time.

So the afternoon was given over to "Working with Sound".

My aim during any training session is to encourage simplicity when devising ideas, so for this sound effect session, I played the group four sound effects that I thought had a poetic quality and would encourage visual ideas.

They were only allowed to use 1 or 2 of the sound effects in their animation, from the four I played them.

The groups then brain stormed ideas and created simple models from plasticine, this took about 30 minutes.

Then the groups filmed for 45 minutes.

Then using Movie Maker added the sound effects to their animations, as well as titles and transitions.

The whole task only took 2.5 hours to complete.

This approach to encouraging visual thought processes and focusing minds is a fun challenge and can be used with all age groups and abilities. Using a sound effect to stimulate ideas within groups also creates restrictions which again focuses minds and prevents ideas and stories from becoming too ambitious.

If the ideas feel uncomfortably simple I think that's good. Simple doesn't mean boring! Using only one sound effect to inspire falls into that bracket of painfully simple.

Poetry is about reducing an idea/experience etc down to a true and uncluttered essence, there is no reason why animation and film shouldn't do the same.

Here are their films.

The teachers now spend the next three months, working with their classes using these techniques for adding sound to their animations and allowing sound to influence ideas for visual story telling and as an opening to exploring poetry. I will meet them again at the end of April when we shall be able to watch and evaluate the work they created.

A short warning for the festive season!

2009-12-18T01:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks to students at the Institute Of Education for this short animation, made in a day on a recent course I ran.

Merry Christmas to you all, where ever you are!

Best wishes

Oscar

Music copyright issues

2009-12-10T02:06:00.000-08:00

Working as judge last term for several local authorities, running animation/video celebrations (prefer the word celebration rather than competition) revealed a pattern regarding music. Schools still don't use copyright free music or create their own sound tracks for their animation films. Consequently the LA can't screen the film during or use it in any way, the film can't be added to a website or Youtube, esentaily it can't be published any where outside the school.

It's a big issue, you can't use a music track by Robbie Williams or Don Maclean or any one else regardless of they are alive or not. You also can't use just a snip of the track, 30 seconds or less. You can't use other peoples music at all, ever! Even if they're your friend and you went to college with the lead singer of Blur! (which I did, sorry had to name drop)

But music does add a huge amount of atmosphere, meaning and depth to an animation or film project, so including it is crucial and also an important part of the process, so how do we get around this copyright issue?

Simple, make your own music. The animation below is a great example of a very simple sound track that was recorded with the voice over in about 5 minutes during a student teacher training day at Hope University in Liverpool. A student with very basic piano skills played the melody while another student acted out the voice over, perfect collaborative learning.

Use your student's music skills, or friends, family and work colleagues., if you want your film to have life outside the schools walls and be published or celebrated in the wider community.

Enjoy!

Teacher Training at the IOE, London

2009-11-15T03:14:00.000-08:00

The three films below were made by teachers new to the world of stop frame animation. A variety of ideas, an animation for KS 1, a Gok inspired make over film and a simple story with a happy ending. We used the Hue webcam and I can animate animation software. Great for team building the day brought individuals together from different schools around the country and gave them confidence to use animation in their school. One teacher noted that is was the "Best course she has ever attended!'

There is an advanced animation course happening on the 4th December 2009.

Visual Literacy in Boston, Linc's.

2009-10-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

These fun animations were made by Primary teachers embarking on a visual literacy project as a cluster group. Retelling and adapting stories familiar with the class, some of the adaptations may not be totally recognisable to their students. Especially Bear Hunt!

Enjoy. These examples were made in a day on recent teachers CPD day, short, focused simple ideas.

Not one, but two!

2009-10-15T05:14:00.000-07:00

These two excellent animations were made today at the Hampshire languages conference in Basingstoke, in just 20 mins. A willing participant from the audience created the plot for each film, animated the fuzzy felts and then added the voice overs using iMovie. Simple but effective.

We used I Can Animate software to capture the animation sequence

And a Hue webcam, HD quality.

Animation with MFL's

2009-10-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

Hola! Today at a golf course in Sunny South Gloucestershire we animated fuzzy felts! On the fram Fuzzy Felts. I was hoping to create a new film genre, using the subtle tones of the French language with Fuzzy Felt, but no volunteers so we used Spanish instead. This film was made in just 20 mins proving that it doesn't take a long time to make an animation, by Ben and Elena. Thank you!

Sleepy Sheep

2009-10-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

A fun short animation made by teachers in Devon in 60 mins. as part of the Persistence of Vision project happening in Devon, Norfolk and Warwickshire this year. I like the sound effects and the clever use of blur to highlight the dreamy state. The blur was created with the focus ring on the front of the Hue webcam. Toes could have been made bigger and wiggled more!

2D animation made on a bus

2009-09-09T02:15:00.000-07:00

This brilliant short film was made on a Bus by young people in Bristol working along side Helen Hewitt, who works for Animation For Education.

The technique is simple and effective and took only a day to complete, working with one laptop, camera on a tripod, I Can Animate and iMovie.

The project was funded by the fire service and their objective was to raise awareness around fire safety with young people.

Sketch out simple ideas around fire safety.

Create the art work using plain white card and a thick black maker.

Decide on features that will be animated.

Set up kit, so camera on tripod is pointing down ( As a rostrum camera would) towards

the art work, blu tak is required to keep back ground still and clean hands help.

Notice in the film that only a few features are animated at a time, this makes it very

watchable as well as close shots with the camera draw the audience in.

For information on courses for teachers and workshop opportunities for students you can contact Animation For Education Here

Animated sticky Notes

2009-08-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

This is a great example of a simple idea, fun and engaging. Will have fun trying this out and stickies are cheaper than plasticine!

Shapeshifting Post-It Notes from mrmayo on Vimeo.

Close ups, close ups, CLOSE UPS!

2009-07-21T02:22:00.000-07:00

My objective this summer, running animation workshops around the UK, will be to develop a method of encouraging students to use close ups or at least move the camera closer to the action. Close ups draw the viewer into the world being created and thus engage. Too many animations that I've watched this year and for several animation competitions that I have had the pleasure of judging, have been filmed in one entire long shot, fine for the first 15 seconds, but then it can get boring.

Photographs that are close to the subject are far more interesting than long shots, long shots are used to show the huge mountains or wonderful sunset on the beach, but with lego and model animation in schools we must get closer to the action and not worry to much about excluding the set ( That may have taken a long time to create). An audience want's to follow the action of the story foremost.

Animations from Team Building day

2009-07-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

These are the outcomes from a recent team building day at the Institute of Education, London. Much fun was had by all. Quote from organiser of the day below. The films were made in just 60 mins and each group was a given a title to help focus minds and keep within the theme of the day.

Why talking is better than email.

What makes a team?

‘One of the best staff development days we have had.
It was a great way to get to know other members of staff, work as a team
and of course have a fabulous animation to show at the end!
I would highly recommend it!’

Team building- part 2

2009-07-15T03:21:00.000-07:00

The session is only 1 hour long in total 15 mins planning, 30 mins
filming and finaly 15 mins to add sound

Team building using animation- part 1

2009-07-15T03:15:00.000-07:00

I'm at the Insitute of education, London using animation as a team
building activity.

The title for their film is, "Why is talking better than email?"

Primary languages

2009-07-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

Two fun short animated fuzzy felt moments created today in just 60 mins at the Primary languages conference in Telford.

The teachers emptied the boxes of fuzzy felt bits and created their stories, then shot the action and finally added their voice overs. Proving that animation doesn't have to take up huge amounts of time and can be used for creating short MFL scripts and stories.

Enjoy.

Collaborative learning

2009-07-08T04:01:00.000-07:00

Teenagers can get a lot of bad press, for their attitude and
behaviour. But one area teenagers excel is when working together as a
team or in a group. They can do this so naturaly compared to other age
groups. Animation can allow these natural soft skills room to develop.
Below the students are working as a team sharing and communicating
their ideas, this is a great skill for life, the ability to be able to
communicate ideas and thoughts clearly to others in away that can be
understood.

Of course we want all students to be able to read and write but to
have the skills of sharing ones passion and vision are just as
important for success in life.