Evaluation of our project

Evaluation of our project:


There were a few problems along the way when we were making this stop motion animation

• The time it took to mould each flowers seemed to take a long time, so Rhian added clay onto one flower. This seemed to work much better and looked more effective.
• Lighting was probably the most difficult factor to control and caused a few problems for us. First of all we wanted the night scene to look dark but we tried a few things such as putting card on top of the camera, which didn't work. In the end we just left it as it was, also the light outside the classroom had an effect on the video too; as the sun moved away from the window the room naturally got darker.
• At the end of this video we wanted the original flower to have grown a substantial amount, but when we tried to enlarge the flower it became increasingly difficult for the flower to stay up. After a while we found a small thin stick that we put the flower against and made a triangle structure at the bottom for it to stand up straight, this worked and the flower stayed up long enough for us to take more photos.
• I found that the computer programme Zu3D was relatively easy to use as Mandy had showed us how to use it previously, however I think that it would have been better if there was more programmes available to us which could test us more and enable us to do more also.
• When we presented our final project to our class and Mandy, on the interactive whiteboard it looked quite blurry. I was disappointed as it didn't show the exact detail of the scarecrow and the scenery. However, this seemed to be the problem for all the other groups projects.

Overall we were all really pleased with how our project turned out, the topic of the video seemed to be easily understood within the class and the other groups and Mandy seemed to enjoy it too :)

Life of a flower project

This is our final project: Life of a flower

 Below is our completed flower project! So happy with how it had turned out, and with how the three of us worked together; we were a really good team. Stacey was really organised and knew what we were doing all the time, I knew how to work the programme Zu3D and Rhian was brilliant at moulding the flowers. Overall I'm really pleased with the finished project! :)

Filming process

In the above photos you can see our filming process.

We took it in turns to take photos using the computer programme Zu3D, moulding the clay, and moving it bit by bit to create the illusion of continuous movement. This process I enjoyed as on Zu3D you can play back as you go along, and I loved seeing what we had done so far. It took a little longer than expected to mould the flower as Rhian found that gradually the flower got heavier. 

Lighting was our main problem as it was hard to show darkness when we had the moon in the video, also as the sun moved outside the classroom this affected our video.  

At the end we had to change the speed of the video as when we played it back we thought it was too fast, and it didn't last two minutes. After a while we got the  speed that we thought worked well, so you could see whys was going on. 

I am so pleased with how our video has turned out, although at the end it wouldn't save! This was very stressful but we managed to work it out after a while. 

Design process 2 - Storyboard

As you can see, this is our storyboard! 

Our main idea was that our video would show a flower growing, planting the seeds, night time, sun rises, the plant grows, water it with a little watering can using blue glitter as water, bees fly around it, pollinates with yellow clay, butterfly flies in the sky, the flower grows more and more pop up around it. 

If the video isn't long enough with these ideas, then possibly we could add more flowers to the process. 

Hopefully it will all turn out like we want it to!!!! 

Design process

When we walked into class I started to panic as some groups looked like they were over half way there and some had nearly finished! Once we sat down we came to the swift conclusion that none of us were creative, therefore our idea had to be simple and relatively easy to do, which meant no drawing etc. 

After about 10 mins of knocking a few ideas about we decided on a flower growing using clay to mould it. So we wrote our story on a piece of paper them on an actual story board and delegated tasks for what we had to do. I started to make the scenery; so I cut a box so it was half open, cut and stuck blue card for the sky and green card for grass, and glued some cotton wool for clouds. 

While I was doing that Stacey made the clay flowers, the sun and the moon. We thought that was enough for one session, so we decided to make some bees, butterflies and a scarecrow to add in when we got home. I also said that I'd make a fence for the flower to go in, make it look a little realistic. 

News Cast

 

Here is the news report Stacey and i created :) This was created through the computer programme Audacity, basically we had to create a podcast with news stories in it. I really enjoyed this lesson as Stacey and i had to create different voices etc. and the stories were topical and what we found interesting :)

Importance of sound . . . . . . . .

“Sound effects play an important role in conveying action. Music helps express emotion.” Michael Geisler

This statement is true to me, i believe that music and certain sounds have a huge impact on a persons emotion. Particular genres of music can either make a person feel happy or sad, it can change moods for the better or for the worse. I find that listening to a particular singer or band will make me feel happy when i'm down or make me feel more excited. When a film or short animation has certain music or sounds it sets the tone and tells you what it is going to be like, e.g: if the intro is up beat or slow. Also, when a particular song is put in an animation or film it can make you think of different memories that you associate with it or from a time in your life. )

Zu3D our animation - Pirate on the loose!

Here is mine and Gabriela's Zu3D stop motion animation, titled Pirate on the loose!!!

I have to say i really really enjoyed doing this, we found it relatively easy to do although it did have its set backs:

• couldn't see the faces of the little characters as the picture wasn't good on the webcam
• lighting due to people walking past and the shadows
• thinking of enough to do due to the video having to be one minute

Overall it was really fun and interesting to do! :)

Stop motion animation and learning

The world's smallest stop motion animation:

Zu3D

Here's the video animation I created on Zu3D! Doesn't it look professional?! :) Even though at first it looked really basic and easy to use i still struggled as always, once I got the jist of it i did find it easier to use.

Animation as a learning tool . . . . . . .

Created with Padlet

Phenakistoscope

A phenakistoscope is a spinning disc attached vertically to a handle. Displayed around the disc's center is a series of drawings showing phases of the animation, and cut through it are a series of equally spaced radial slits. We would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc's reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the we would see a rapid succession of images that appeared to be a single moving picture. (Wikipedia 2014)

Zoetrope

• A zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of still pictures.

• The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut into the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures.

• As the cylinder spins, you look through the slits at the pictures across and you see a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.

(Oxford Dictionary 2014)

thaumatrope

A Thaumatrope is a disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image.

Clay animation . . . . . . .

* Clay animation or claymation is one of many forms of stop motion animation.




* Each animated piece, either character or background, is made of a malleable substance, usually Plasticine clay.




* Traditional animation is produced by recording each frame on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession.




* This creates the illusion of a continuous moving image.




* To shoot a 30-minute movie would require making approximately 21,600 stops to change the figures for the frames; a full-length (90-minute) movie, 64,800—and possibly many more if some parts were shot with "singles" or "ones" (one frame exposed for each shot).

The last animation I watched . . . . . .

The last animated film i watched was 'Rango' starring Johnny Depp! Absolutely love this film, watched it so many times but it's still funny. To sum the story up: Rango is a pet chameleon always on the lookout for action and adventure, except the fake kind, where he directs it and acts in it. After a car accident, he winds up in an old western town called Dirt. What this town needs the most is water, but they also need a hero and a sheriff. The thirsty Rango instantly takes on the role of both and selfishly agrees to take on the case of their missing water.

BETT Show pictures

BETT Trip to London

BETT {January 22 – 25^th 2014} 30^th Anniversary

It’s the global meeting place or the education technology community, offering first-hand knowledge and advice from the industry’s innovative figures. (BETT website)

“The only place where you can hear from the biggest names in education”

Award winning interactive solutions for any classroom, video conferencing for learning, forums, speed learning, live learning, SEN learning, school leader’s summit, games, learning support, school management, HE and Work Place learning.

All the different ‘stalls’ consisted of help towards: Maths, Science, English, Foreign Languages, SEN, ICT and Media.

Short talks from:

• Teach First
• Hampshire Academy
• Ipswich Academy
• Eton College
• Founder of 100 Word Challenge
• West London Free School
• Plymouth University
• City University of London
• Education Innovation Centre, UWE
• Open University
• University of Birmingham
• Donald Clark, CEO of Epic
• Charles Jennings, Founder of 70:20:10 Forum
• Mike Thompson, Head of Employability for Barclays Bank
• Top Right Group
• VISA Europe

One of the main thing that I noticed was there were lots of ‘stalls’ that contained interactive white boards, touch screen boards/computers etc. They all seemed very similar but very popular.

I did enjoy walking around the different areas as I haven’t been to anything like it before, but I did find it a bit monotonous (There was a lot of the same thing).

Hopscotch animations - fading octopus

Our session today was about the application Hopscotch! We had to use coding to create different things e.g: a square or a triangle or a house. I found this extremely frustrating and difficult to do. I did not understnd the theory behind it and the different controls, it also had elements of maths in it which i found hard to work out the angles etc. Didn't really enjoy the session as it stressed me out, even though i completed the tasks i couldn't do it by myself without help. https://community.gethopscotch.com/projects/fading-octopus-nos0yh24x12gqkzttilu-q

Scratch parrot animation

Today, we found the Scratch animation programme online and mandy went through it on the board step by step (which i found a lot easier to understand than copying a handbook!) I then looked through the different images and picked a monkey, chose a nature/park bench background then programmed it to walk a few steps, jump on the table and look excited/ However, Mandy and i then discovered that the functions were complicated compared to other images. So, i then changed the image to a parrot, did the same actions then have the parrot then for it to make a sound. Overall, i enjoyed this Scratch lesson a lot more than the last one for sure!