Session 9

Filming begins! Finally we get to the camera. We used the animation software “i-can-animate” as it is very straightforward and user friendly.

Once the pupils are introduced to the basics they can work away independently.  Although we’ve been involved with the FÍS project from the start, the pupils are always changing, but the “net-gen” are so facile with new technology, they pick it up really quickly. Trust the pupils to handle the equipment!

At this stage the pupils are well familiar with setting up the tripod, camera and the laptop. They placed their characters on the background and began shooting the third scene of the stop-motion animation…yes, the third scene. With any filming you begin wherever you want to as the sequence is sorted out in the editing phase. We simply start with whichever group is ready first.  The crew set up in a section of my classroom and worked independently, only now and again calling on me for advice or just to show the progress they’d made! As only one group can film at a time, our organisation of the classes allows me to teach the rest of my pupils while the filming is on-going. At this point I should say animation is silent so noise interruption doesn’t matter! A bonus in a multi-class!

Curricularly pupils are subconsciously engaged with shape and space, direction and developing spatial awareness; the strand units you can’t master from a textbook — real maths! There are serious maths opportunities depending on the age of the pupils, working out how many frames to one second, calculating how many shots needed to cover the length of the music piece, whether you have less or more shots in order to speed up/slow down action…the opportunities are endless.