Elsecar Iron Man

Today I have been working with Fabric Lenny at Elsecar Heritage Centre, helping nearly 30 children from Barnsley make an Iron Man out of cardboard. Fantastic!

Their inital Iron Man designs were great too...!

Magic Frames: Animating at Battyeford

The First Light animation project at Battyeford Primary School is going really well! The children have been amazing. So far they have completed one set and have already begun building another.  I am really looking forward to helping the children make their film over the coming weeks! For regular updates on this project please visit the Magic Frames website.

Magic Frames Begins!

Today was the first day of Magic Frames, an exciting filmmaking project I am working on with Fabric Lenny across four schools in Kirklees, funded by First Light Movies.

During our first day myself and Fabric Lenny worked with Y3 children at Battyeford Primary School to develop their story ideas, design the sets for the film and begin to construct cardboard props including a huge pirate ship. At the same time, Dan Mallaghan was working with children at Crossley Fields to help the children turn their amazing ideas into a script. There is a real buzz in the schools already and the children are fantastic! Please follow the Magic Frames website for regular updates from the children...

Lydgate Vikings Animation

I have just finished delivering an animation project at Lydgate School in Batley alongside artist Fabric Lenny. Together we worked with 31 Year 3 children in the creation of a Viking Animation film. The children developed fantastic imagery, created animatable characters and built huge sets, along with writing and recording the narration and animating all the characters. The children were a joy to work with and we had great fun. Here are some images captured throughout the process. More can be found on the Kirklees Arts4All blog, along with the final film.

Magic Monster Machine

I have spent the last 24 hours working on a wonderful project at Elsecar Heritage Centre with Fabric Lenny and James Brunt. We were commissioned to work with 20 children to design, construct and animate a life size machine that will appear as an installation at Elsecar Heritage Centre to celebrate the launch of the Newcomen Beam Engine Restoration Project. It was a real challenge to complete all this work in just one day, but the children from St Helen's Primary School were fantastic and produced some amazing work. We documented the making process through stills photography and timelapse animation and have just completed the edits of the film "Magic Monster Machine" and the 'Making Of'. Phew!! Well done everyone!!

Habitats - Animation Project

I am currently working on an animation project with children at Hyrstmount Junior School in Batley based on Habitats. The children have created some amazing artwork already and the characters and sets look wonderful. Here are some images I have captured along the way. Please visit the Kirklees Arts4All Blog to find out more about the project.

 

Fib And Archie's Monster Machine

I am currently part way through an exciting animation project working with Year 9 pupils from Carlton Bolling School, Bradford and Year 2 children from Fagley Primary School. The pupils are working together to produce a short animation based on the Fibonacci Sequence. The Fibonacci Sequence is a series of recurring numbers starting at 0. Each Finonacci number is the sum of the previous two numbers in the sequence and begins as follows... 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 etc The pupils have developed a script which cleverly incorporates these numbers in a shop and factory setting run by Mr Fib and Dr Archie. Here is a still from today's animation set - the monster making machine. I will upload more as we progress through the animation which is looking great!

Mr Fib and Dr Archie's Monster Making Machine

The Rainforest

I have just finished working on an animation project at Benjamin Adlard Primary School in Gainsborough with a fantastic group of young children. In a week they made an animated documentary film based on animals from the South American Rainforest. All the characters were made out of cardboard and were animated using the replacement technique. The children also wrote and recorded the narration along with some amazing animal sounds. Here are some images captured during the making process...

Howler Monkey on set

Toucan and butterfly on set

Replacement characters: Howler Monkey, Red Tree Frog and Sloth

Replacement Characters: Red Tree Frog, Toucan, Howler Monkey and Sloth

The Final Days at Stocksbridge

The animation project at Stocksbridge Nursery Infant School is almost complete. The children have recently finished animating the factory scene, they have recorded voice overs and sound effects and they have also recorded short interviews for their "making of" film. There are only a few more scenes to shoot and then the edit to tackle before their film is complete. Check out their blog for more information including screening dates soon to be confirmed ...

More animation at Stocksbridge

The animation project at Stocksbridge Nursery and Infants School is going really well. The children are fantastic and they are working really hard. Over the last few weeks we have been animating the farm scene and making machinery parts out of cardboard for the factory set. Here are some recent images from the project. More images and information can be found on the Stocksbridge Filmmakers Blog.