Animation Camp

     This is the final work from the students of the first Lego animation class I teach for Bricks Bots and Beyond. It was a four day camp for kids ages 10 and up. I think it was a huge success, especially for being a first on many fronts. I want to give a whole bunch of credit to Chris Walsh, my stop-mo teacher from Sheridan. My class was largely based off of the 3rd-year stop-mo class he taught, and he was generous enough to give me some helpful suggestions and feedback as I developed the curriculum.

For those interested in what the camp entailed, here's a breakdown of what I taught:

Day 1

• Introduction to animation as a medium
• Introduction to the AnimatorDV Simple+ software
• Simple animation exercise
• Group critique

Day2

• Introduction to storyboarding
• Create a story, then board it
• Translating storyboards into actual shots
• Group critique

Day 3

• Introduction to post-production and editing
• Introduction to the VideoSpin software
• Finish shooting films
• Group critique

Day 4

• Editing films
• How to export a film
• Final viewing for parents

This is video is a slideshow of the class in progress that my boss put together. You can see the workstations and sets that the kids used to make their films. There's also some good shots that show how well they problem-solved to make their films look good.



Seeing the kids getting really into the animation and enjoying their work was really cool to me. I've got a ton of thoughts about what happened in the class that I may put up in subsequent posts.