Animated movies
Video doesn't always have to start with moving images of course. Stop frame animation, as is used in the famous Aardman Animations, is a good controlled way of making movies. They don't need to be feature film length of course. The animated angle-poise lamp featured in the credits of every film from the animation company Pixar, is only a matter of ten seconds long. It is a celebration of Pixar's first film. Pixar uses 3D rendering for their movies, so all the visual elements are mathematically modelled not photographed. They are however excelent examples to inspire pupils. Other short animated films from Pixar can be viewed at www.pixar.com/shorts/index.html
Animations may be either photographed ‘stop-frame’ type, painted using a paint package or a series of scanned images linked together and played in quick succession.
Producing the animation – software options
There are many packages capable of creating animations. The choice of software will depend on whether it is simply a collection of scanned or photographed images, or whether the animation will be painted. You may need the software to control the timing of frame capture. You may also need to consider the format in which you publish your animation. Some programs only export animated gifs that do not support sound.
The packages given here are not the only ones available, but are ones that are highly regarded or that I have used with good results.
iStopMotion
A very good program for the Mac is iStopMotion from Boinx software. This allows the user to take individual photos over a period of time. These can either be triggered by the user to produce stop frame animations of a model that is being manipulated to give the impression of movement, or triggered by the computer at set time intervals to produce time lapse movies that appear to speed up time. The program can be downloaded and purchased from www.istopmotion.com . There are also examples on the site of movies shot with iStopMotion. This package exports in QuickTime format which allows for web publishing, cross platform compatibility and sound support.
Animation Shop
With my pupils in the past, I have used Animation Shop that comes bundled with Paint Shop Pro. This is a very capable package and there have been a number of highly successful animations produced by pupils. Some of these can be seen on the Sussex Road School Website: www.sussex-road.kent.sch.uk It should be noted that these were the first attempts at animation and were completed with around two hours of work. Animation shop exports gif files only. These do not support sound, but are cross platform compatible and web friendly.
Visit www.corel.com for details. Animation Shop seems only to be found on the American part of the site, but can be downloaded.
2Animate
A simple solution, as you would expect from a company called 2Simple is 2Animate. This allows up to 48 frames of animation within a project and can export to a number of different formats. The frames can be 'painted', taken from scanned images or taken from images snapped with a web-cam. You can also paint on top of the camera images. This would be a superb introduction for younger pupils. A series of 48 frame animations could be published in a web page table with captions to make an animated story. Visit www.2simple.com
QuickTime Pro
As you would guess from the name, QuickTime Pro creates QuickTime movies of your animated sequence. It supports sound and allows you to publish your animation on the web.
Download and purchase from www.apple.com/quicktime.
Adobe Flash
As used in South Park Cartoon
www.adobe.com