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Little Dinosaurs
Making great films is all about being able to tell stories. The short animated film Little Dinosaurs is a wonderful exercise in simplicity and how less can definitely be more. After watching the film with your class use some of the starter exercises and tools to help you and your class read this film.
I love it because the animation started with a recording of a very natural and unrehearsed 5 year old boy explaining what little dinosaurs should do when a big dinosaur starts bullying them. Rather than carefully planning a film with your class find a great question linked to your topic or subject and record their answers, voxpop style. Or ask pupils to write and then record their short stories, adding sound effects too like BBC radio dramas. Create small animations that illustrate the stories and what the pupils say. The easiest style of animation to start with is definitely 2D cut-out animation and the creative possibilities are endless.
Alternatively, you could a technique called animatics a process where you use illustration stills to visually tell the story. This is even easier than animation as you don't need any special software just the movie editing software (imovie or moviemaker) that comes with all computers. Ivor the Engine and Mr Benn are brilliant examples of effective storytelling that uses a mixture of an animatic style and simple 2D animation. Or try digital storytelling which is a combination of still images, moving images and sound. The biggest stumbling block with any first foray into animation is the editing. Keep it simple. Edit it with the class or on your own. If the animations aren't long enough, loop them, slow them down or add some still images of photos or illustrations. But keep it simple.
National Schools Film Week
The 27th October to 4th November is National Schools Film Week in Scotland. Bookings are now open for special screenings of films all over the country. Most pupils will be used to the large multiplex experience but this is also a great opportunity to take pupils to cinema venues in art centres in Paisley and Stirling; Regional Film Theatres in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow and priceless indepedent cinemas like the Cameo in Edinburgh. National Schools Film Week claims to be the largest event for schools and cinemas in the world and still nothing comes close to watching a great film on the big screen. Especially with all your classmates. So book now to avoid disappointment!