Animation Pre-Production

Opening - discussion on the art of Animation and what it takes to create a movie. depending on Grade level break it down into understandable bites.

Objective. Students learn how to expand upon an idea.
Tools: Word processing, Power Point for presentation, paint package - image creation - web comic strip tools - digital camera for stop motion project

Procedure:

Part 1.
1. Students open Word - type in names and save to folder.
2. PowerPoint - Animation - Character development - Understanding your self. Using a collection of finish the sentence choices
Examples are provided of a choice of beginnings .
3.students start by typing :
I have always been good at .. They finish the sentence then add a why statement and a conclusion statement.
The series follows a standard format of groupings - What the student is good at - What they Dream of - What they care about.

Part 2 - the character development of Hero, secondary and Villain.
Students will be asked to describe their characters physiology - sociology - psychology.
Lists will be provided : e.g. what hair color - where do they live (what planet) - how do they think. ( easy going - impatient - happy)
They will type the lists in word using tables to create a comparison chart ..

Part 3 - story development - Students will take their character description and create a story for them. They will write a short summary of the story's beginning, middle, and end.

Part 4 - drawing the characters - students ideally would use a digital drawing tablet and draw their character using a paint package. If not they can be drawn on paper and scanned in. Students will use their character descriptions as a guide for their drawings.

Part 5 - Story boarding - which will take the form of developing a comic strip based on the characters and stories developed.
to illustrate different tools and means of completion students will :
a. Create a Comic strip by hand (pen and paper) and scan in.
b. Students will use toondoo.com to create their own characters from pieces provided and create a comic strip which they can post to the web.
c. Students will draw directly on the computer using drawing tablets

Part 6. - conclusion
a. Students will take Key descriptions - research and images and create a PowerPoint sideshow for class presentation.
b. Students will compile all work into a class book for sharing using Word or desktop publishing package.
c. Students will create a class comic book. using word or desktop publishing package.

This leads into Lesson 2 - Creating Animation.