At times during the last three weeks, Class 4 have been taking part in a very special animation project. With an audience of Reception Class in mind, Year 5 and Year 6 formed two groups and planned a short, simple story on a Christmas theme. They then got to work building their sets....
We used a range of materials in creative ways - here chalk has been used to represent blocks of ice.
Mrs Wraighte dropped by to keep up to date with developments - the Year 5 set is really taking shape here.
Building a second set for the Year 6 animation (an arctic hare's home!).
The children are so engrossed here they weren't aware of my snapping!
Adding finishing details to the sets....
It was important to create backdrops so that the camera wouldn't accidentally focus on the classroom or any irrelevant things.
Here, pupils sort though a pile of plastic letters which were used for an animated title sequence.
Filming commences...
Great action shot - we used very fine cotton to elevate Santa so that he could be moved in the air without any hands being in shot. The cotton was colour matched to the background where possible so it was less visible.
We used plasticine to make a wide range of additional characters and props - here is an entire arctic hare's Christmas dinner!
To make the lightning strike flash we took a couple of frames with it present and then it was removed for the next shots. This was repeated to give a flashing effect. We also used close-up reds and yellows to flash and add drama, as well as turning the lights on and off to make the set appear stormy.
When all the filming was complete, we turned our attention to the narration. Although we had a basic storyline, we hadn't yet formalised the writing of this. At this stage we had a class writing competition - firstly we wrote the story in a standard narrative style and voted for a Year 5 and 6 winner in class. This story was then pitted against a narrative poetry version (in the style of Julia Donaldson) - the overall winner in each group was used for the final films.
Well done for being chosen by your class for both the standard narrative
and the narrative poetry versions!!
Here are the Year 5 finalists sharing their best efforts - well done!
After recording the narration, characterised speech and sound effects, editing was completed to bring the scenes together into the final films. These were completed just in time to share with Reception Class on the final day of term. However, we thought they were pretty great so we decided to invite the entire school instead.
Clearly they are quite captivated! A proud moment for Class 4.
The final product - as part of the project we also designed dvd covers (cd size box I know) for the final copies which were all made using digital media too.
This has been a fabulously fun project to run. I'm very proud of the final outcomes and all the brilliant ICT skills the pupils have developed, not to mention great creative design and teamwork skills too. All in all this project has been a great success and I hope one the pupils will remember for a long time.
