The Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT have released a program called Scratch. There aim was to to make computer programming a part of primary education. It has been publicised widely, most notably on the BBC and on Slashdot. You can download it for free.

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An essential part of the planning process, your storyboard will help you organize your time and articulate your intentions. A good storyboard should have lots of visual appeal and help convey the reasons behind the animation.

You might include dialogue, camera angles, music notes, lighting, etc…

Please post completed Storyboards (PDF format please…) as comments against this post.

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First completed project... short and simple. Download file.

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Today we discussed the Plasticine Stop Frame genre and looked at anthropomorphism.

A good example are the series of Creature Comforts films by Aardman Animation.

Their site includes some examples of scenes from their animation series as well as documentary footage of how the films were made.

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I found this great Australian animation site. Some cool animations, articles, workshops, animation techniques and bios of the animators.
The workshop area is particularly good if you serious about improving your animating skills.
The animations are surreal, funny and thought provoking.
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/strange/
"12 animations. 12 animators. 12 insights into their practice and their trade secrets....."

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Just for your amusement I found a link to the Honda Ad we looked at in class today. It doesn't tell a story, it doesn't seem to convey any facts about the new Honda Civic - I'm not quite sure what the purpose of the ad is - but it has my complete and undivided attention!

You can find a link on Honda's Website - along with a short film showing the Choir rehearsing - hilarious.

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Just so you can see it again, here's the link to Peter Gabriels Sledgehammer from 1986. 20 years on, you can see why it has won more Video Awards than any other Music Video.

You'll be using a program called I Can Animate. It works with an iSight Camera and we have ordered a couple of Griffin Sight Lights ... hope they arrive soon!

If you need to be convinced of what you can do with something as simple as Lego, have a look at either Oblong Pictures or Brick Films.

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