Week 6

I loved this week! We were taking a break from editing our movies and we started looking at animation. We had to think of an idea, create a story board for it, create the characters and then film it.

Idea

We had a think about what we could actually do. We came up with a few ideas but finally settled on Old MacDonald Had A Farm. We thoughout about the animals we wanted e.g. cow, pig, sheep, duck and Old MacDonald.


Story


We based our animation on the song Old MacDonald Had A Farm. Each part of the story board had a different animal. We decided what order we would do it in and what the other animals would be doing when the 'main' animal was having their moment. I think we chose a fairly simple story to go with and something that I think children would find easy enough to do.

Creating the Characters

This was so much fun to do. I will admit, slightly time consuming, but I think that children would really enjoy doing this within a classroom. They are developing their fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination when they are creating their characters. They are also being highly creativity, i.e. it doens't have to be a normal cow, why can't it have a flower hanging out its mouth? etc.

It must be said though they we did cheat slightly. There was already a sheep and a pig made. We did alter this slightly to meet our needs, but we did not make them from scratch. As it is said in teaching, it is all about sharing.

Filming

We had our story, we had our characters, it was now time to get down to the nitty gritty stuff. We were using Digital Blue Animations to film our animations. These were easy to use but needed lots of clicks to even complete one second worth of footage. No wonder Wallace and Gromit took years to make! I found this an enjoyable process, but I think unless everyone is involved, then pupils will become bored and distracted because they do not have anything to do. I think it would be good to do this in collaborative/co-operative learning groups and give each pupil a job title i.e. encourager, time keeper, resource manager, note taker etc. This means that every pupil needs to be focused and needs to be on task. However, this needs to be on rotation so that they all get a chance to learn/practice a different skill, while learning about animation. Johnston and Johnston believe in working together. They believe in a community of practice and working together to complete a task.

Unfortunately we didn't get finished our animation. I think we only did about 20 seconds worth of footage at most, but its a start. I think pupils need to be aware that it is a longer process than normal but if they are fully engaged with it, they will truly enjoy it.

I cannot wait to get back to ICT to finish filming and then to edit it, providing editing is easier than with our movies!