Audacity

In this lesson we were shown how to use the program Audacity, which is a software designed to record and edit sounds. For the task everyone had to create a pod cast using the program, in which we had to pretend to be a news team reporting on something. 

The program was pretty straight forward to just as a recording tool, you could change your voice to make it sound completely different which was fun experimenting with.

 Unfortunately our recording would not upload, but it was all about comedic things that we had found on a news website e.g. debate over the best bunking biscuit. Below is an example of someone using this program:

                                

Zu3D

In our last lesson we had the opportunity to use Zu3D, which is a software that enables you to create stop motion animation films quickly and easily. Here is a link to the website which explains and shows all the things that this software enables you to do: http://www.zu3d.com/features

At first when I opened the software, I thought it was going to be quite difficult to use and didn't think I would be able to create a really good stop motion mini film, but after watching Mandy's demonstration and trying a few times for myself, I quickly got the hang of it. Once getting familiar with the different options and understanding how to take multiple frames, we had to get into small groups and create a small stop motion film. Me and my friend decided that we were going to use paper to create our film and came up with the idea to make a paper origami game and the stop motion film would show how each different section of the game is made. The amazing thing that this software enables you to do is take lots of images that end up becoming a film once finished, so you can go back over the images to get them perfect and delete the ones that are not. Once we had finished our film we were so pleased with how it turned out, we couldn't actually believe that we had made it. The completed film shows our paper design coming to life all by its self, even though it was quite difficult we were able to take all the images without our hands in the pictures, which left the film looking professional and really effective.

I will upload the film to another post as it is saved on the university computer, but below I have uploaded a short paper stop motion animation to show you what they are like.

Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion Is very much like clay motion. It involves taking hundreds of photos or clips to form a smoothly running short film. Below is the worlds smallest animation that Mandy showed us in class. It think it is absolutely amazing and such an inspiring creation.  The time and effort that was put into making this is unbelievable.

What is animation

In our last lesson we had to research what animation is, and blog about the last animation that we had watched. I found this lesson really fun and enjoyed learning about the different types of animations that you can get, and how each of them work in different ways.  Using animation is a great way to help most anyone develop skills and competencies in various ways:

1. Visual communication

2. Concentration

3. Story telling

4. Problem-solving and innovative aspects

5. Cognition, emotional, ethnic and aesthetic aspects

Stop-motion animation is what we mainly focused our research on within this lesson, and we were set a task to highlight our findings. 

Below is a link to a website to explain in a bit more detail what stop motion animation is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion

• Characteristics 
• Advantages 
• Disadvantages
• Costs
• Successes
• Disappointments
• Examples  

Below is a  short clip to show you a stop motion animation video

Phenakistoscope

A Phenakistoscope is a spinning disc attached vertically to a handle. Displayed around the disc's center is a series of drawings showing phases of the animation, and cut through it are a series of equally spaced radial slits. We would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc's reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the we would see a rapid succession of images that appeared to be a single moving picture. (Wikipedia, 2014)




Here is a link to some more information and background on the Phenakistoscope:

http://courses.ncssm.edu/gallery/collections/toys/html/exhibit07.htm


Here's a video of how to create a Phenakistoscope:

Thaumatrope

A thaumatrope is a toy that was popular in Victorian times. A disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image due to the phi phenomenon and persistence of vision. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaumatrope

Zoetrope

Zoetrope

• A zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of still pictures.

• The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut into the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures.

• As the cylinder spins, you look through the slits at the pictures across and you see a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.

(Oxford Dictionary, 2014) 

Below are some links to some use sites that give more information on Zoetrope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoetrope

http://www.zoetrope.com/


And here is a video show a Zoetrope: