Group Reflective Blog

There were four members in our group Hannah Cummins, Iwan Evans, Roisin Stewart and me Rookshanara Khanum.
Our science concept was Food Chains and ESDGC. It is aimed at upper Foundation Phase and KS2. Our animation was inspired by the creature comfort animation.  The animation will sound like a nature documentary and have interviews with each of the animals in the food chain.
We were initially going to use 5 characters with a narrator but then decided it would be more humorous if the narrator was actually in the scenes.  Our characters are Mr Sun the energy source, Lady Grass the Producer, Monsiuer Grasshopper the primary consumer, Mrs Mouse the secondary consumer, Mr Owl the tertiary consumer and finally Tarquin Beefheart our presenter.We are not using green screening as it is very sensitive to light and technical. The set we will be using was made by hand using cardboard, foam, coloured paper and acrylic paint. The design is based on a familiar habitat for a simple food chain. A habitat that would fit our food chain. The conflict that the characters are having are survival and seeking attention. The conflict will be resolved by giving them time to say their piece and run away before their predator eats them. We will give each character their own voice and have narration from the presentor throughout the video. We will also use a background score of Vivaldi's four seasons as it fits the topic well and is familiar to the audience as it is a well known composition. We should avoid complicating the process as we have enough to deal with as it is with sound, visuals, making, lighting, editing and filming. We should keep in mind the skills and techniques we have been shown throughout this module by our lecturer and use them to the best of our ability to produce our final product.


Limitations

The limitations for our project was time and technical issues. We also encountered belbin's model of team members.

 

 

Story Boarding

A story board helps to map out what the script will look like visually and add graphics to the narration. It saves money as it is a cheap way of seeing the animation unfold without having to make the models or filming and then not using the film.

Below is a sample of the story boarding I did for our animation.

Story board depicting final line-up of characters

Group Meetings

Meeting 1
In this initial group meeting we discussed science concepts that we could animate and base our story line on. After brainstorming we settled on the concept of food chains and picked a basic food chain to use. We decided to research the animals that we were going to include in the food chain to make sure that they were scientifically correct. in terms of what they eat and where they live etc. We also discussed possible roles for each member of group. Such as Script writer, character/model maker, set maker, camera person, mover and voices etc.

Meeting 2
Assigned roles to members in group. Iwan was assigned the role of script writer, Iwas assigned the role of set design and making and the credits ets, Hannah was assigned the role of taking shots using zu3d  and Roisin was given the role of creative director. They were also assigned the joint role of making characters  After finalizing the food chain we were going to use and the animals that we were going to make we discussed features to have for the characters. We discussed the type of stop motion to use and played with the different materials available and decided to use claymation animation.

Meeting 3

I brought the sets along to this meeting to show the group what I had made and for us to make a final choice on. We realized that some roles would need to be worked on by more than one person or would need input from all members of group in order to achieve it on time and to the best quality that we could.. Hannah had trouble finding clay and so she and  Roisin hadn't started making the models until this actual meeting.. As I had leftover green clay I made  the grasshopper character and props at home and brought it with me to the meeting. Iwan and I looked at the script and how to improve it whilst the girls made their two characters each.

Earlier versions of the characters in our animation made during an animation seminar seminar.






Final clay models for animation.

Meeting 4

Came across problems during the production and shooting of the animation that we had not realised that we would have such as lighting reflecting of background or being to bright or dark to see the characters actions etc. This took along time to combat as there were other groups in the same room and each group needed different lighting which was difficult to work with. In hindsight we could have asked to move to a room on our own if we had just asked. This would have helped the fussing about with bits of foam and cloth to block the light which ate into our production time. We recorded all the characters voices on a programme called audacity and exported it using a mp3 or wav file and got an embed code from archive.com to put on to our blog and animation. However trying to amalgamate the sound to the voices in the right places for each scene and character was to ambitious for novices like us. Our over ambitious idea to lip sync the characters just using the zu3d software and the characters movement cost us the whole day and wasted valuable time. However I managed to learn how to record directly on to the ZU3D software using the information provided by our teacher on moodle as a supplement to our friday lessons therefore we as a group decided to delete the audacity file.

Meeting 5

We decided as a group to start filming again as it would be better if we made the narrator in to a character instead of a voice over as it would give us more animating scope.

Meeting 6 Final Project

We finished filming all the animations using ZU3D and recorded the character voices on ZU3D voice recorder after making adjustments on script. Edited and matched sound to film as a group. It took contributions from all of us to figure out how to use the many functions of zu3d on the laptop as it was too much for one person. I am so glad that we have a finished working animation that we are happy with.

Evaluation of personal learning

I have gone from being scared of writing a blog to solving issues and problems that we have had with our animation using what I have been taught in class and the research I have done around the topic. I had thought that the other members of my group would be far more advanced in using the software that our lecturer had shown us to use for animation. However I found that my interest and enjoyment in the creative technology we were using, helped me to learn and retain things so I could help my group. I was able to show my group how to import sound for background music. I also learned how to record directly on to the zu3d animation from the example video that our lecturer placed on our e-learning cite called Moodle. The insert sound button and the direct reord functions were used on the zu3d instead of using the audacity sound clip that we had made as it was causing problems in matching speech to characters. I personally found websites that had good audio files and learnt how to enbed the audio tracks and insert them to ZU3d. Bruner (1966) states that action and interaction with environment, teacher and peers help the learners to move from working with objects to iconic and symbolic representations of salient points. Csikszentmihalyi, (1990) describes one positive emotion of increased learning as flow. This is when a learner is fully immersed in what they are doing.
I feel as I have experienced Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) flow as the characteristics of enerzised focus, full involvement and success in the process of the activity remained with me throughout. I believe that flow kept me going when we encountered lighting difficulties and other technical difficulties initially and throughout the production of the film.

 

Green Screening

Green Screening which is also known as chroma keying is the use of special effects to create a set or background for a film or animation. It is a process where either two images or video streams are put together. It is done using a green sheet or blue material usually as they are colours that contrast the most with human skin tones. Any colour can be used they just have to be uniform and distinct. The important thing is to avoid using colours that are on the background material. Zu3d software allows you to take shots of visual images with a green background and import or use images from the media library on zu 3d. Green screening gives you the scope to have a background that is from fantasy or real life that would take time to make or would not be achievable with solid materials. In class a piece of green cloth was used and draped over a piece of cardboard to experience green -screening as novices. However there were creases on the green material which reflected the light and affected the chroma-keying. The video below helped me understand the process of green screening clearly.

Session 9          

Academic Research 

The advancement of the technological age and access to new learning tools necessitates the integration of creative technology into education. However, the prospect of planning for and providing a learning environment which promotes innovation and collaboration, whilst embracing new technological tools, can be daunting for practitioners. This can be due to the somewhat elusive notion of creativity and innovation in education (Barlex, 2011). So can stop-motion animation affect and influence the realisation of creative technological learning? Moreover, does it make an invaluable contribution to engaging, collaborative learning?

In order to answer the question of whether stop-motion animation can affect and influence the realization of   creative technological learning we need to explore what creative technological learning is and how it can be fostered. The contributions it makes to engaging, collaborative learning and whether or not it makes an invaluable contribution will depend on the learning outcomes of activity. 

Creative technological learning is the learning done using technology in a creative way in order to engage learners in learning. As we live in a technology driven world education is competing for attention with all the latest electronic gadgets that learners can get their hands on. Therefore it is imperative that learners attention is captured and sustained in education with the positive use of creative technology. Creative technological learning changes with society depending on what the society that uses it deems as creative. Beetham and Sharpe (2007) state that learning technologists help accelerate the learning cycles in education in order for it to keep up with the short cycles in society such as scientific and employment demands as well as youth culture. Animation is one of three technological forms the other two are multimedia and virtual reality, Animation is the  dynamic representation that shows incremental change over time (Ainsworth, 2008).  Animation is a form of innovative technology that can be used as a tool for creative learning. Tversky, Morrison, & Betrancourt, 2002: Moreno & Mayer, 2002 (cited in Ainsworth, 2008) state that research shows that animation does help learning but under certain conditions.   Lowe (2003) states that animation is only a useful creative technological learning tool if the processes are supported with 'instructional enrichment.' Lowe (2003) also states that animation will only be effective if the learner is helped to extract the relevant learning required for a particular topic from the animations so that they can internalize it into their existing knowledge base.  However Ainsworth (2008) argues that animation can be used to learn successfully only if the complexities are overcome. In order to harness the positive affects and influences of stop- motion animation the disadvantages and distractions that detract from the main learning intentions need to be minimized. According to Ainsworth (2008)  many factors influence learning using animation and success of any application is also dependent on the way these factors interact. Ainsorth (2008) suggests six different levels of explanation to help with understanding learning through animation which are: expressive explanation, cognitive explanation rhetorical and motor and perceptual explanation , strategic explanation, meta -cognitive explanation, 

Although stop-motion animation can provide learners with dynamic information that static graphics cannot it is the learners extraction of the relevant information and its incorporation in to their existing knowledge base that is key to whether or not it is a successful tool for learning. Stop-motion animation can affect and influence the realization of creative technological learning if supported by teachers and if it matches the learners learning interests and styles. I believe the constant narrative provided by our lecturer in conjunction with the sample animations have helped us complete our group task of making an animation ourselves. Even though we have been exposed to many new software and technical words and processes the continuous narrative delivered in the lessons in conjunction with example animation clips and support has helped me grow in my learning. Animation can make an invaluable contribution to engaging, collaborative learning if the learners collaborate and remain engaged enough in the learning to assimilate their external learning into their internal knowledge base as I have done during the process of making our group animation. Reiber, (1991 cited in Ainsworth, 2008) state that animation can  motivate some people to learn.This was true in my case however I also found that animation helped me cognitively as well, as I had to learn through experience (Tversky et al, 2002). I made myself familiar with our learning objectives for our animation task and the criteria needed for it which helped in the production process of the group animation.

References

Ainsworth, S. (2008). How do animations influence learning? In D. Robinson & G. Schraw (Eds.), Current Perspectives on Cognition, Learning, and Instruction: Recent Innovations in Educational Technology that Facilitate Student Learning. pp 37-67. Information Age Publishing.

Beetham, H., & Sharpe,  R. (2007). Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and Delivering E-learning. Oxford: Routledge.

Lowe, R.K. (2003), Animation and learning: selective processing of information in dynamic graphics Learning and Instruction Vol 13  157–176

Sound to Create Atmosphere 

Emotion, atmosphere, scene setting, voice acting, details to the scene are all essential to animation as without them your experience will be incomplete. Visuals only capture your attention for a moment where as sound can keep your attention for longer. A real life example would be the radio which people still like to listen to even though there are no visuals to see with it. If sound is used effectively it adds texture to any narrative and retains the audiences attention for longer.

Design of mini set for animation

As a group we decided it would be best to make our set by hand instead of green screening as green screening was new to us all and we felt that a traditional set would work best with clay animation. 

From our initial meetings I was given the responsibility of designing and making our mini set.

Whilst designing the set I tried to keep in mind what kind of habitat the animals in our food chain would live in. I made the following four sets for the group to choose from. We unanimously decided to choose the fourth one, as it was the set that was the most aesthetically pleasing and fit our narrative and science concept the best. I enjoyed the creative freedom I had in the designing and making of this particular task. I was also very glad that I had managed to make a set that everyone was pleased with.

Set design 1                                         Set design 2

 

 Set design 3                                     Set design 4 and final choice. 

Once the set was chosen my next steps were to make props to make the set more like a natural habitat. Below are a sample of the types of props I made.

This is what the final set that we filmed on looked like. It is all coming together can't wait to see the final animation.

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final project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZsJBLYFYvo&feature=youtu.be

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ZZsJBLYFYvo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Today was great! There were so many wonderful animations. They were all different and everyone had used different skills that we had been taught in our seminars. Different groups used different technical aspects and tackled problems that arose differently. It was lovely to hear that a lot of people had similar problems to us. I'm glad I picked this module as not only have I improved my use of creative technology and improved my learning I was able to see peoples creativity come to life.

Audacity

We had to create a news report in pairs using current news following a format.This activity was challenging but exciting. As we learnt new skills of how to record sound and export it using MP3. We used MP3 instead of WAV as it is more portable because of its small size.. MP3 is also universal so can be used on any system. It was important to plan for all elements of the criteria that we were going to be assessed on. We were so consumed with the organisation of the activity that we run out of time to finish it. As this was the first time we had used this programme we spent alot of time getting familiar with the tools and technical aspects. Hopefully our news cast shows promise and good qualities. If I had the opportunity to do another podcast I would be able to concentrate on the content and script more and bring in more humour.with the use of  accents etc instead of just changing pitch and amplification. We finally exported it using a host site called archive.org where we sign up for an account and upload our audacity clip and then create an embed code to copy and paste into our blogger account. I am happy with my contribution as I managed to complete the tasks and gain an understanding of theses applications in order to use them in our future animation project.

Criteria for podcast

Audience & purpose
Content of message
Clarity of presentation and sound effects
Presentation planning
Voice
Overall
Then the scores were totalled for each pair.

Zu3D Group Animation

We created a group animation today. Our group members were Roshin, Hannah, Nia and me Rookshanara. The process was very interesting. The Zu3d software package was used in conjunction with a webcam on a tripod to create our own stop motion animation. We named our animation "The Big Dilema". In the initial stage we found objects and made characters to go with the farm scene set which I had brought in. We then created characters using the lego provided . We also.spent some time brainstorming some ideas for the story board and characters. The activity was fun as we had to think on the spot and use our imagination to create something out of nothing. Each of the members of the team contributed skills and ideas that were essential to the creation of the animation. We have tried to upload the video on to the blog but there were problems with saving it and uploading it using tinypic.com, therefore Nia has saved the group animation on her pen drive.

"The Big Dilema" is set on a farm where two characters have to deal with spills and accidents as well as daily chores. We used lego and toy cars as props to animate.

Unfortunately Nia was unable to save on her memory stick or the desk top so the animation was lost. I am disappointed but however have learnt to always have a back up of work.

This is an image of one of the characters we used in the animation. we made both the characters using lego bricks. It was easy to animate them as both the face pieces had a sad expression and a happy expression on either side. We were also able to show this particular character sinking in to milk and being pulled out by the other character. We made the incremental changes by removing and adding lego pieces from and to his body.

Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

 Zu3D
In the last scientific and creative learning seminar for animation we used a software package called

Zu3D.  We had to create our own animation using this software and then convert it to an avi or wmv file and then finally post it on to our blogs with the help of tinypic.com. How amazing! Here was a software package that enabled me to become an animator. Animating is something that I have always wanted to do since the days I used to sit watching Rolf Harris draw pictures and ask "Do you know what it is yet?"
I have always enjoyed drawing pictures and using flip books to try and get my images to move, but animating by hand is painstakingly slow and takes a long time to create. Zu3d has many features that speed up the process of animation. Firstly drawing a basic frame and repeating it instantly by dragging it across and then using the copy and paste functions. Secondly layering it with other images or texts whilst keeping the basic frame the same this is called onion skin layering. I found the software frustrating at first but once I got to grips with the creating tools I was very proud of my creation. I am confident that the more I use this software the more exciting each of my experiences and creations will be.
Throughout the process I felt empathy for the pioneers of animation. The creative process we used let us experience all the different techniques of animation within a couple of hours but we were still frustrated initially. It had taken the pioneers of animation a century to get animation to this stage. Thank god they didn't give up! I love watching animated films!.

I practiced the skills I learnt from this session by teaching my daughter how to make her own animation. I found that the experiential learning made me consolidate all the skills Ihad learnt so far. 

 

Below is a picture of my daughter using the 7 day trial version of Zu3d she created her own animation using the same steps I had used in class.

Blog 2 group camera- less animation activity

The Magic Lantern is the earliest known example of camera-less animation. Thought to be invented in the 15^th century by Giovanni Fontana a Venetian.This invention cannot be credited fully to Fontana as he only published a drawing of his invention not an actual working lantern.  It was not until the 17th century that a working model was produced by Christian Huygens and Athanasius Kircher. In 1676 the Sturm Lantern was invented one of the first known magic lanterns.  The Magic lantern is an early version of the projectors that we know today.Even Leonardo Da Vinci experimented with image projection in the 16th century. The components that make up the Magic Lantern are oil paintings done on translucent material; a lens and a light source such as a candle or a lamp. The audience would be able to view the images in a darkened room on a flat surface. The Magic Lanterns were used as props by magicians to fascinate and scare their audiences. The most well known example of this is the Phantasmagoria. It wasn't until the 19th century that it was brought to the masses by Wilhelm Busch a german artist and his story slides. The The Magic Lantern  is the predecessor to the cinema projectors and helped develop photography.

             


Production of our own Magic Lantern
In a group we made our own version of a Magic Lantern using a card board box, cardboard, acetate, a lamp and a lens. The proto-type was constructed with whatever material that was available in the class. We used the card board box as the main body to house the light source, We then used a rolled up piece of card as the ledge for the images to sit on. This rolled up tube was then attached to the box using cellotape and incisions we made with scissors. The light source was then attached to the box. Finally we decided upon an image to make incremental changes to.  Whilst making our Magic Lantern there were many things that we discussed in the group such as: whether a mirror was needed; what would be a good light source: how to make sure none of the light escaped and what material to draw on etc.

  

Evaluation
I feel that we did a good job considering it was our first ever attempt at making a Magic Lantern.  Our proto- type worked but needed to be fine tuned in order to be used by the masses. I felt like an early inventor. Maybe Kircher or Huygens felt like us when first attempting to build a Magic Lantern. The production process would have gone more efficiently if we had known more about the components needed to build one. Maybe an image of how it was supposed to look like would have saved us time, but I doubt it would have given us as much fun, as we had in the making of it with no idea of what we were doing at first.  The thinking and discussions we had were all important and necessary to the production and our understanding of the mechanisms of our camera-less animation gadget.

What is stop motion animation?

What is stop motion animation?

Animation is an optical illusion created by incremental changes to images or objects in order to make them come to life. The origins of animation can be traced back to the Paleolithic times. During this time story-telling and mark making were conveyed through drawings on cave walls. Through these drawings messages were passed to others. Ptolemy the Greek astronomer discovered the persistence of vision which brings inanimate objects to life in our eyes.
Stop motion animation is a technique that makes images or objects like clay, puppets, cut outs, etc that are static and appear to move. This is usually created by overlapping images captured on film or computers using cameras.  The picture or digital cameras used need to be able to expose single frames. There are animators making the small changes to the set, characters, and props between each frame. Stop motion is the core element of a clay motion animation process. 15 frames per second continuously produce a moving video of the inanimate objects moving.

Magic lantern in 1671and the Phenakistoscope , zoetrope. praxinoscope, flip book in the 1800s are inventions of early animation. .They used the technology of sequential drawings to produce movements. Animation started to come into the spotlight in the 1890s because of special effects on films sets and short animation sequences produced for children’s television. The credit of creating animation cannot be given to one person, as at the time many people where discovered to have been experimenting with it.  

There are many names that have made animation what it is today.Winsor McCay of United States, Emile Cohl and Georges Melies of France are important names in the world of animation.

 J. Stuart Blackton was the creator of the first animated film in 1910. Emile Cohl created the first paper cutout animation. It wasn’t until 1913 that celluloid allowed animation to be produced in a manageable way..Émile Cohl's created the first hand drawn animation. Georges Méliès, combined the ideas of animation, special effects and stop motion and McCay made the first feature animation.

The history of animation will not be complete without the mention of Walt Disney who combined animation and sound to produce the animations that we love to watch , such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs etc.  Art Clokey in 1955 combined stop motion clay animation with computers. Ivan Sutherland in 1951 created Sketchpad, further giving computers importance in   creating animation. Ther are many animation types such as puppets, sylhouettes, cut outs, objects and Stop motion animation is another animation category.

The main considerations of making a stop motion animation would probably be the cost of production and time.

Aspects of stop motion animation

The software that is going to be used to film it and the hardware required to make the film.
There are many applications available to use to film animation such as : Imovie maker, Windows movie maker, ZU3D and Stop motion pro to name but a few.

The sets and characters are aspects that need careful consideration. They can be made from recycled material or, wire. wood, cardboard or foam and acrylic paint.
The hardware can be as simple as a hand held digital camera or lots of computers taking shots from different angles


Stop Motion Pro prices

To produce a stop motion animation the following is needed: Software, animation rostrums (start from £150), Webcam and tripod (£40-100 or more), armatures and webplast plasticine. Software can range from £33 single user-£999.
Current pricing:

Stop Motion Pro	Price
Studio HD (The software used by Aardman Animations)	$295
Action! HD for enthusiasts who need HD quality	$185
Studio HD Education discount (The software used by Aardman Animations) Single licenses can be purchased by a student or school.	$185
Action! Plus for animators who need more creative functions than Action!	$140
Action! for people who are just beginning the exciting journey of film making	$70

Lip Sync Pro	Price
Seperate product from Stop Motion Pro. Create your own or use the built in mouth shapes to lip sync dialog easily.	$49

This is an example of a stop motion film using post its.

The latest animation that I have watched

The latest animation that I have watched is hard to select, as I watch many everyday with my daughters. If I had to choose a favorite, it would be Tangled an animated musical. It was pure genius, the way the story of Repunzel was twisted on its head.Tangled is also my daughters favorite at the moment. It was created by Disney using computer generated images and traditional hand drawn images. I loved all aspects of the film from the illustrations to the sounds and musical score. I have grown up watching Disney animations and each one is a classic  in its own way. I have always wanted to be able to make an animation or be part of one since I was small. I got the chance to experience the magic and fantasy of Disney at Disney World Florida. However I hope to experience a tiny bit of the magic of creating an animation from scratch during this module and our group animation task.


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