Projects

Salt Grammar School

Watch the final animation

Project Outline

A Year 8 art class worked on a pop art theme to complete their animated project. Students had already carried out work on the Pop Art movement before they began working on their animated films. They were familiar with the styles and content associated with the movement and hoped to incorporate these in their finished animated pieces.

Method

Students were introduced to the project by the animator, who showed them examples of various animated techniques including model, drawn and cut-out animation. They were encouraged to ask questions about the animated sequences and contrast the different styles used in each clip.

It was decided to produce one long film rather than six short ones and it was agreed that the students should work collaboratively to achieve this. The class was divided into six groups; each was to tackle a different part of the film. The art teacher asked that all the film sections relate to a journey of some kind, whether a journey to the fridge for a drink or a journey on a plane to another country. To enable all the films to link, students agreed to start and end their sections in a particular manner. e.g. Group 1 might start their section with a character emerging from the darkness and end it with the character falling through a window. Group 2's film would then start with a character emerging from a window and end with it with a door closing. Group 3's section would then start with an opening door and so on.

The students worked on a simple story idea showing one clear action to animate. Ideas that were too long or illustrated too many complicated actions were discarded. Students then worked on their own storyboard to illustrate the action. When the individual storyboards were complete they were photocopied and the copies cut into individual storyboard panel sections. Each member of the group contributed several of their story panels to the group storyboard. This aided group collaboration and produced a clear vision and idea for the film.

Once the storyboard was complete, the groups made lists of all the characters, props and backgrounds that they would need to draw in order to produce the film. Some characters needed to be drawn in a side view as well as front and back view. It was important that this stage of the production planning was completed to ensure that all sections of the storyboard could be animated when students began work on the computers.

Students drew out their characters on paper according to the list they had compiled and these images were then scanned into the computer and coloured digitally using the Complete Animator computer software. Then animation began. Each groups animated its own section of the film, dividing the work between members according to the complexity of the shot and the ability or confidence of the group member and interest.

Once animation was complete, students could see the various clips compiled into the longer film. The completed sections from each group were exported from Complete Animator as AVI files. Due to time constraints, the animator edited the work together and added sound effects using the Adobe Premiere programme.

Watch the final animation