Making animations

Mr Matt had a session with the Grade 4 students today. He gave then some great tips to consider when setting up a stop animation. The students will experiment with different techniques tomorrow with a partner. They will create a short clip using scenes from their procedural writing.

Tomorrow they will be writing a procedural piece - How I snuck my monster into school. The students can bring cloth for a backdrop, toys or small characters to school. These character can be in their stop animation.

A few hints to remember

Lego movie maker Application is free & can be uploaded to an iPad at home if you want to experiment and make your own animation.

If you want to make you animation VERY smooth you need 60 frames per second. Less than 30 frames per second - a bit jerky. Mr Matts example Captain Goodbad had 38 frames (10 seconds). However it took him 45 minutes to create it.

When setting up your scene Mr Matt recommends you set your speed to 6 - 10 frames per second.

• Select - New movie / done
• How to use (follow instructions)
• Do not move camera - set up scene and camera in fixed position
• Lighting - keep behind you
• Grid - helps you keep position
• Onion peel - ghost like image that helps you know where to set up your character. 
• Snap picture - Finger snap to take picture
• Chose filter 
• Add music
• Sound effects on individual frame, edit and add sound 
• Duration - chose the amount of time shown
• Export to iMovie and further edit / voice over
• Export to G drive