Session 04. 13/10/16

Four new young people this week, four more talented potential filmmakers in a room at the start of the session. We started with a quick round the table memory game where we discovered what everyone's name was but also what item they would take on a trip to Mars. I think with a cat, lipstick, chocolate, an apple, a book and a few other choice items our trip was going to be a success. We then found out what kind of film genres everyone knew and liked, and jumped straight into story making with the Object, Action, Emotion, Genre word generation game.

CHICKENTOWN

In a small village the peasants are hungry. All except one man, Jeffrey, who is so greedy that he steals the village's supply of chicken for himself. He does this so often, he becomes obese, and the peasants in the village become suspicious. Setting a trap for him, they set some poison into the meat so that whoever ate it would get ill and be exposed. That day, Jeffrey ate so much Chicken he thought he would burst. He didn't burst, he died. His funeral was a sparse affair, and the people who laid his coffin in the ground did so without any ceremony. As was the custom, they lay the departed's possessions on top of the coffin to take into the next world. Jeffrey hadn't many possessions, in fact the single item placed on his coffin was a small toy mouse. When a person has been wronged in this life it is hard for the soul to pass over, and even though Jeffrey was clearly a greedy and evil person, he had been wronged. His soul swirled about his coffin before finally entering the nearest object - the small toy mouse. Now everyone knows that when a soul enters an inanimate object, that object becomes animate. The small toy mouse became a small mouse, and that small mouse wanted revenge. The peasants in the village were holding a celebration now that their food source had been restored, and chicken was on the menu. The mouse sought out the chicken store and infected the whole lot, causing illness and great suffering to the peasants. Seeing the mouse scampering away from the chicken, they grabbed it and held it down. They could see that this was no ordinary mouse and knew that they had to cleanse it of the bad spirit that infected it, and so they dissected the mouse to find the bad soul inside. Jeffrey knew he was in trouble in the mouse, so he made another bid for freedom and floated up out of the mouse's body. Where did Jeffrey's revengeful soul end up? Find out in the second film of the series ....

JJ the Flying, Farting Cabbage Cat

JJ is not like other cats. He's special but the other cats hate him and they hiss at him when he goes past. JJ gets all the attention from the humans and he loves it. One day, Leonard (the evil cat leader) gets a gang of cats together. They corner JJ and decide to force him to eat a cabbage, knowing that cats hate cabbage. JJ eats the cabbage and gets terrific stomach pains and is in agony. Suddenly, there is a big puff of gas and his bottom explodes. JJ farts so much that he flies up into the air and escapes Leonard and the gang, making Leonard smell his own medicine. With his new-found power, JJ is now even more special.

We are 'down' with film making

I THINK WE COULD MAKE THESE FILMS ...

Through the magic of stop-motion animation, we could bring these stories to life ... all we need is some play-doh, some coloured paper, scissors and an iPad. Wait! We've got those things - let's get to work ...

It's ALIVE!

Adding a bit of artistry to the background

The hero of the story made real

The construction of Jeffrey's prop coffin

The animation production line in full flow

Preparation is the key for stop-motion animation. Create your characters, create you background [and ground] and then assemble it all so that you can see your scene is ready to go. When you think you are ready, it's time to start animating. Good tips for creating a animating are:
[1] Keep the camera steady - only move characters/objects
[2] Be steady and patient - you will need to take a large number of photos for even a short animation
[3] Move your characters/objects just a small bit between each photo - each frame will only last a fraction of a second.

A study in focus and concentration

The horror of 'Chickentown'

The end of the session came all too quickly for our budding animators. So much so that one of them returned the next day to continue the fine work. Fantastic!