Each Tuesday for 6 weeks our
Digital Methods class is hosting a Digital Art Workshop. We are
teaching the students about many different animation techniques.
Day 1 The first day we
experimented in Photoshop and made a quick little animations. I was a
mentor to one student, which was nice because I could give all my
attention to one person and it made it less hectic. First we went
through a Photoshop how-to on how to make an animation using a picture
of your face that was taken in Photobooth and then using the paintbrush
along with other tools in Photoshop. The students took a photo using
the built in camera on the Macs and then opened it in Photoshop. The
students all used the tools to transform their faces into magical
creatures. The demonstrations worked really well and was a quick and
efficient way to show the students what to do.
Day 2 We begun our on-going
Animation Project! Between workshop days one and two I brainstormed an
animation project idea and came up with a a story based our off the
classic fairy tale "The Ugly Duckling". To make the story more
interesting, I change it to be a tale of
"The Ugly
Pumpkin". I got the idea because I as on Long Island this weekend and
went Pumpkin picking in a huge pumpkin patch.
The story is about an
Ugly Pumpkin
that doesn't get picked because it is different and unique.The pumpkins
in the patch alienate the 'Ugly Pumpkin' and overnight he turns into a
huge pretty pumpkin and then into a
Jack-O-Lantern. We presented a visual plan that showed out
Andy Warhol pop art style we wanted to create.
On
Day 2
we presented the story to the students, and started making a storyboard
and designing our characters. We looked at photos of pumpkins online
for inspiration and used filters from Photoshop to get the pop art
look. The students were quite shy and hesitant this day and it was hard
to get reactions and opinions out of them, but after some time and
working through ideas we figured everything out!
Day 3 was really
productive! Us mentors divided the animation work between the two
students. One student worked on creating the pumpkin patch and all the
pumpkins, and the other student worked on creating the ugly pumpkin and
making it grow over night. Both students worked really well in
photoshop with the assistance of the mentors when needed. One of our
students even started putting his images into iMovie! I was quite happy
with the effort put into day 3, but I knew we still had a lot of work
ahead of us in iMovie.
[[Here is our Ugly Pumpkin!]]
Day 4
Was special because we got to do stop motion! Before our students got
into the room we set up a green screen and spot lights. We had gourds
and mini pumpkins as objects and our plan was to move the pumpkins
across the area to gang up on the 'ugly pumpkin'. Our students came
into the room and we explained our goals for day 4. Our students seemed
excited to experiment with this new kind of animation technique. Both
students took turns and moved the pumpkins and took the photos of the
scene. The end product turned out really good and I think we were all
really proud. Once we got done doing stop motion we went back to the
computers and worked hard in iMovie bringing the animation to life. In
addition both of the students collaborated to make the final scene of
our animation::: The Jack-O-Lanterns. Each student took a few photos of
themselves with funny faces and then in Photoshop they layered their
faces on top of the pumpkin and applied filters to make the final
product. The students then created a flip book like animation in
Photoshop and then sent it to iMovie to add visual effects and sound.
Both students finished some iMovie sequences which helped us stay on
track!
Day 5
Was our final day to complete our animation. We had two halfs of the
animation, each done by one student, that we had to make into one final
animation. Each student continued to work in iMovie selecting sounds
and music and transitions to make the animation whole. Both students
did great in picking effects and neither overused or underused them.
The students were able to move around in iMovie and use all the
different tools with efficiency. Garageband was also introduced on day
5. Having no background in Garageband it was fun learning from our
students, they knew more than I did! On day 5 our group was able to
finish our final version of our animation. We did have a few sound
editing issues to complete after the students left, but most of the
work was completed by the students in class! This was great because it
showed the awesome effort by our students! Overall the experience was
exhausting, but very very educational. It was a great opportunity to
have hands on experience teaching students animation techniques and
software.
