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.