The Top 4 Things We Liked About the Baseball Game

    Ben, Spencer and I went to the Diamondbacks game last night at Chase Field.  This was their reward for accomplishing the summer library reading challenge--free tickets to a Diamondbacks game.  So I asked them what they liked most about the game-- they gave me list.

 

 

1.  Free bobble head toy of player Dan Haren

2. Diamondbacks hot dog

3. Using binoculars

4. Watching the moving ball sculpture outside the ballpark

Note the absence of anything to do with baseball.  Yep we went to a major league baseball game and their favorite thing was the toy.

I've got to admit, the game was great, but the moving ball sculpture was really cool and kept us watching for quite a while.  After some searching I found some information about the contraption -- I wish I had a good picture, but none of my cell phone pics turned out.  Check out the artist George Rhoads' web site.  Or check out his catalog of work.  He is my favorite artist for the week -- he does painting and novels too--lives in Tucson I think and has sculptures all over the world.

 

 

More Animation Fascination Celebration

Ben and Spencer's new favorite thing

Say the blog title three time in a row and it will make this blog entry more fun right from the start.

Kids love animated cartoons?  Duh!  Of course they do, every kid likes animation.  Well what is better that watching -- well... making their own animations!  Since last week's introduction to stop motion animation Ben and Spencer have been itchin' to make even more animations on their own.  So...  We got out the camcorder and set up the ol' computer and --voilà!!  I think they are great, especially for kid beginners, very amusing and creative. Take a peak.  Don't forget to vote for your favorite and leave a comment - these efforts deserve  good critiques.

 

Cool Videos huh?  

Spencer and Benjamin really picked up fast on the idea of stop action animation.  How'd we do that?  It actually turned out pretty easy to set up too.  Here is how we did it - you might want to do it tonight too.  First you need a video source. This can be almost anything: a digital camcorder, a digital still camera or a webcam.  Then you need some software.  We found an awesome free resource out there called Animator DV simple+ --it is professional software, but they are generous enough to offer a free version.

Check out this site for a good review of several options for software.

You will need to use another video editing program in addition to the AnimatorDV in order to create sound effects and author it to a DVD--like windows movie maker (free) or Adobe Premiere (expensive).  But for the basic capture of the frames, Animation DV works great.

If you try the same thing, let me know how it goes--or let me know if you have questions.  I thought it was a blast to set up and do.