Recently in Project 3 > Digital Storytelling Category

The first day of the Workshop I was in charge of video documentation. This was a very enjoyable experience, since I enjoy behind the scenes work.
As a mentor for the rest of the workshop I aided in the animation process with the students. We used the following programs with the students: Photoshop, Quicktime, and Garageband. In my post processing I also used Adobe Illustrator. I found myself wishing we could just focus on one or two aspects of the animation process. This would have been to the students benefit to learn a program really well rather then having to learn a completely new interface every afternoon. Even if we had just cut out Garageband they would have had more time to work on the animation. I felt like my fellow mentor and I did to much of the animating and that if the students had been given more time they could have completed the animation on their own. One of our students was absent for two weeks, which took a real toll on his creative input in the piece. When he came back he was ready to work on the piece and did everything we asked, scene wise, and brought his own ideas to the table. Our other student was a hard worker and completed all of the characters in one night with time to spare. Because of the absences she had to work even harder to get twice as much done.
Overall I think the students had a good time and got a lot out of the experience. I know that I enjoyed teaching digital techniques.

Digital Workshop Day 5:

Today we worked in iMovie and Garageband. We added all the .jpg and .mov files, including backgrounds and scene breaks for the students and then helped them build a story out of the elements that they had already created. We supervised the making of the movie file and then had the students try and finish one song to be used as the theme music throughout the whole movie. Neither of our students were familiar with the programs and so it was a new and interesting challenge for them to work with these mediums. I have never used Garageband before myself so this was an excellent learning experience for me. I have the beginnings of an amazing song for my version of the animation.

Digital Workshop Day 4:

We worked on animating the different scenes so they would be ready for piecing together in the next and final class. Here are just a few examples of what we are teaching the youth to do. These are simple, cutout/stop motion animation effects in photoshop and exported to quicktime

Digital Workshop Day 3

Paint on light table animation through stop motion.

This is the piece of our story we are animating that illustrates the transformation of a horse to a man. Done by one middle school student under the guidance of two college Art Education Majors, Lorena and Elise.

1.     Merchant on a journey to get gifts for his daughters and he gets lost in the forest.

2.     Follows the light in the woods to a castle with a stable for his horse and dinner waiting out for someone. So he sits down to eat. He tries to take a flower from the table for Beauty.

3.     A horse comes galloping up to him and says: "You thoughtless man; I was good to you last night, I gave you shelter and provisions, and now you would even take with you the most beautiful flowers from my table." The merchant promises to send his daughter Beauty back to make up for stealing the flowers.

4.     When the merchant goes him he tells Beauty she has to go back the castle. Beauty at once said, "I am willing to follow you, father, and am always glad to help you."

5.     Beauty made her way through the woods and found the castle with dinner set out for her. Soon the horse comes and welcomes her to the castle.

6.     Beauty has a large mirror in which she can see home, she sees her father sick and getting sicker.

7.     She begs the horse to go back for 3 days to nurse her father

8.     Even though her father is getting better she stays later. Finally she looks in the mirror and sees the horse in the garden dying in the roses.

9.     Hurrying back to the castle she finds the horse into the garden she found the horse so very sick that he could not stand on his legs. Beauty knelt down and asked him to forgive her for staying away longer than she had promised. The horse asked her if she would marry him and stay with him at the castle forever. The poor animal now sighed so deeply that she took pity on him and said, fearing that he might die then and there, that she would always stay with him and never leave him.

10.  As soon as she had made this promise, the horse vanished, and a beautiful young prince stood before her.

11.  So they sent for her father to take up his residence with them, and now the marriage was performed and celebrated in a splendid manner. They lived long and happily together, the prince and his Beauty.