Reflection on our stop-motion animation
As part of our assessment
for the Education Futures module on the Education studies course at Swansea
Metropolitan University we had to plan and create a two minute stop-motion
animation. I was working in a group with Dominic James and Aaron Vickery, two
of my friends and classmates. We had researched, and also learned about,
various types of stop-motion animation such as Claymation and the use of cut-outs;
however we decided that we were going to use Lego. This decision was made after
seeing some brilliant stop-motion animations using Lego- however it was this
particular video by Michael Hickox that spurred me on in particular:
Lego Shark attack: Stop-motion by Michael Hickox
We decided that we were going to base our video around the concept of inclusion, which is a hot topic within the education system at the moment. However, we wanted to put a bit of a fun twist on the issue, so decided to use Lego superheroes as our characters.
The characters that we used were:
Iron Man
Thor
Captain America
Hawk Eye
The Hulk
Nick Fury
Catwoman
Setting the scene
The set that we used was provided by Zu3D, who are also the company who designed the animation programme that we used. It was comprised of a very basic stage shaped cardboard box along with a background image:
The Zu3D stop-motion animation software was devloped for children of all ages, but also for adults, to be able to creat quick and easy animated films. With both simple features, for the younger childen, and more advanced features, for adults or the more technically minded child, it was a fun and simple programme for creating our own stop-motion animation.
The story - Friendship, bullies, and inclusion
The main storyline within our animation is the story of friendship and inclusion. We used a poem based on inclusion written by Randy Bassett from the Opening Hearts Inclusion Project in Canada. It begins with the Ironman, Thor and Captain America playing hide and seek. It then moves on to the three of them playing football together, with Hawk Eye sat on a rock in the corner of the scene. The ball rolls over to the rock and Hawk Eye slides down and joins in the game, which the other characters are more than happy for him to do!
Following this, the next scene shows a continuation from the scene before, however during this The Hulk jumps down, knocks Thor over, and steals the football. Once he leaves, the others help to pick Thor up to show that friends always stick together regardless of what bullies may do!
The following scene shows all of the characters walking up to the front, and then off to the left or right. During this scene we see the introduction of Catwoman and Nick Fury. We decided to use these two characters to show that either gender or skin colour does not matter, or shouldn't matter amongst people, whcih unfortunately it does in our society.
Following this they all bow to a round of applause, apart from Hulk as wasn't as manouverable as the rest so we left him out for the purpose of the fluidity of the animation (and because he was a bully!)
Bringing it all together
Obviously, our animation would be completely boring with just visual stimulation so we had to add sounds! Zu3D has a wide selection of sound effects which are very easy to add in to animation, for example the sound of the ball being kicked and the 'camera' shattering were both inserted from the programme itself. However, we didn't think that they were enough so we decided to use a few songs from youtube (which were very easy to add in to the animation through Zu3D!)
Brian Ferry's 'let's stick together' we though was a very fitting sound to put in for when the characters are helping Thor up, whilst Sister Sledge's 'we are family' we thought was perfect for when all the characters are doing their walk up to the camera and off set. Finally, just because we couldn't resist a bit of cheese, we thought we would add 'We're all in this together' from high school music, just to reinforce the togetherness that we hope that all children can show!
To Conclude
What can i say about the project overall?
What a bloody nice change to the typical university assignment, being stuck in front of your laptop for hours on end, with litres of coffee just to keep you going, enough books to break your back, and then references - don't get me started. Although it was very challenging at times (perhaps more planning would take place if we had to do this again!) it was also very rewarding to see the final product, which i'm sure you're all dying to see by now!
Zu3D is a fantastic product, and i believe that it is perfect as an educational tool, especially with technology advancing so fast and becoming such an important factor in education!
Finally, thanks again to Randy Bassett for allowing us to use his peom for this project, and here it is! I hope you enjoy!
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