Preparations

It may be SATS week, but the excitement is mounting for the Festival of Literacy Animation Week.

Year 3 have been painting backdrops. The BIG question is: How BIG should the backdrop be? And will we be shooting against the painted scenery or against a green screen, with the scenery being added in later on the computer? Gosh, it's technical stuff.

Year 4 classrooms have acquired the distinctive smell of plasticene. The children have been working really hard all week making characters based on their design drawings. Some of the detail is amazing. They are having to work out how to make their models stand up, and how to make them strong enough to withstand a whole day of being manipulated for the films.

Year 5 have been showing their storyboards to Year 4. It is interesting to see how the characters and settings have been integrated into the stories. In some cases there have been interesting changes: most notably, the character of Mum who has strangely become a dinosaur. The model makers have cleverly used the storyboards to help them adapt their characters.

Year 6 worked with animator Wendy Griffiths and software maker Roger Young on Friday 17th, learning the principles of stop frame animation. Some of the children have experimented with this before, either in school or at home, but it was great to get some tips from the professionals. Now we are all set up and ready to go next week.