Animation at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery

These animations are too brilliant not to share! Made by staff from the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery and local children's hospital, on a day long training event, I delivered.

The staff from the hospital wanted to animate using felt, as potentially it would be easier to work with. Almost instant and simple to prepare. Some of the young patients they would be working with could be animating stories etc in their hospital beds.

I love the simplicity of this film. Just animating the legs on the big bird, is enough to really bring the character to life and give him a fun personality.

It's got legs from Animation For Education on Vimeo.

This film mixes felt and plasticine to great effect, retelling a local classic about George VI.

A right royal dipping from Animation For Education on Vimeo.

I like the special effects in this animation. Using a long strand of hair, instead of fishing line, they were able to make the objects fly though the air. They thought it was cheating, I think it's creative problem solving.

Helga's Spell from Animation For Education on Vimeo.

We used a fun and easy to use webcam, which delivered great results even in poor lighting conditions.

The snail and the elephant from Animation For Education on Vimeo.

This animation-cam is now available from the Animation for Education website.

Using Classic works of art, as scenery.

A fun day working with year 8's, these films were made in short 2 hr sessions.

Working with the art teacher at Dulwich Prep, we both wanted to try something different with our approach to creating scenery.

We found large prints of classic, recognisable art work from the Masters. These small posters not only acted as a great source of inspiration for the students, but also made excellent backdrops to their films.

We shoot the animations using the Hue Webcam, which acts as a great Rostrum camera, allowing us to film, downwards.

Enjoy the films, there are 12 in all.


Selection of animated shorts, using famous art work as scenery

from Animation For Education
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Selection of animated shorts, using famous art work as scenery from Animation For Education on Vimeo.

Reducing your carbon footprint

Most of us are aware of climate change and the effects of our carbon footprint, these are big themes, global issues on a scary scale, effecting a lot of people.

So for two twelve year old girls, from south Wales, who are part of a collective of creatives looking at these huge themes, the challenge was to share their thoughts, ideas, emotions and fears on this huge topic. And they have, brilliantly.

This short film, simply communicates with strong visual ideas, in true cartoon style, the magnitude of the problem.

To be able to take such a huge theme and reduce it down to a short 30 second animation is an important skill for all filmmakers.

The car from Animation For Education on Vimeo.

The Tate Movie project

During the summer break I've been working as a facilitator for the Tate Movie project. This is a fantastic opportunity for children (aged 7- 13 yrs) to be part of an incredible animation film, due for release in 2012, at cinemas and on CBBC

The Tate are touring the UK, working in schools,at festivals and the Tate galleries, with children to create art work, plots, sounds and ideas for an animation film that is being created by Aardman animations.

Essential all the ideas for the film, come from the children, through these workshops. It's been a great summer, being part of this tour and over the weekend I worked at the Thames festival with the BBC in the Talk and Do tent, along side the Tate Movie Project.

The reason for this posting is to let you know that children can still be part of this unique project, via their website.

www.tatemovie.co.uk

The website is one of the best websites I've seen for a while, packed with great ideas that are fun and inclusive. It's all completely free and all you need to do is sign up.

On the website you can find out what art work the animators at Aardman need, then draw it at home or school and send it, via a freepost address or email to Aardman. If the art work is included in the final film, the young artist will be credited in the film! fantastic, I'm jealous.

On the website you can; watch some demo clips, of art work children have created, that have then been brought to life by animators at Aardman. Submit ideas for the script and make noises for inclusion in the final film. This website needs your creative input!

Spend some time exploring the site and get involved. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be involved in an amazing, creative, huge idea.

The clip below was created by animators at Aardman using art work made by children, it will give you an idea of the look and feel of the project.




www.tatemovie.co.uk

An amazing example of stop motion techniques and art

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.

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!

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.