Franklin High’s Animators’ Club
Make your own
animation!
Purpose: To inspire interested students to create their own animated short films. Join us to learn about software, animation techniques, and to watch films that are great examples of the art of animation.
Meets: Tuesdays in HF2 (the Mac Lab) from 3:10 to 4:00 p.m.
Club Advisor: Mr. Clark
If you have any questions or need any support, see Mr. Clark. The Mac Lab is usually open until 4:00 p.m. on most days. You can arrange time after school to record your character voices or use the software we have in the lab.
This entertaining video is used by Cirkus, an animation company in New Zealand, to explain to their clients how the 3D animation process works. (Note: One printed word of inappropriate language.) Look at this document that they prepared that illustrates the steps in animation.
AnimationMeat.com has a great collection of articles and other resources.
Brian LeMay is an animation teacher and author who has a lot of valuable material on this website. Check out his Six Tips and the material on his Animation School index.
AndyToons.com has a large list of animation resources.
StopMotionAnimation.com has some EXCELLENT articles on the subject.
StopMotionWorks.com has a number of interesting articles for those interested in this subject. The site is somewhat dated.
Claymation Station has some solid information for those interested in claymation. If you have never done an animation before, Claymation is a great way to start.
Read this article about stop motion animation used in a Diet Dr. Pepper commercial.
Learn the Grammar of Film. Remember that animation is just another form of filmmaking and that all the rules involved in live action films apply to animated ones.
WHERE TO GO TO COLLEGE
If you want to study the related fields of animation, game design or visual effects in college, check out my recommendations.
Understand that a successful animation project requires a lot of advance planning. Creating an animation is a commitment to many hours of labor. The work can be an individual effort, but there are benefits to making it a team effort. See if you can work with others to create a winning entry.
The steps to making an animated short film:
Allow lots of time.
Below are some FREE resources for those interested in working on an animation project.
I consider all of these resources safe for you to download on your home computer. It is your responsibility to see if the software meets the minimum requirements of the computer you own.
Celtx is free script writing software for both the Mac and PC. This software formats your script following the industry guidelines. The general rule is that one page of script equals about one minute of screen time if you follow the proper format.
Audacity is free open source software for recording and editing sounds on both the Mac and PC. (Mac users can also use GarageBand, which comes on their computer for free. Audacity has more features, including multiple tracks, but requires more time to learn.) The Audacity website has a good tutorial page.
Sound effects are an important part of any animation project. They give the animation an added sense of realism and energy.
You can find an amazing collection of free sound effects at The Free Sound Project. This is a website sponsored out of a
university in
Sounds can be found using the Internet search engine FindSounds.com. To see a list of the range of sound available, click here.
It is important that you do not use copyrighted music (any Top 40 music you may own). YouTube could remove all of the sound out of your video if you do. Also, you will be disqualified from most film festivals if you use music without the legal right to do so.
Rather than use copyrighted sounds, make your own or use music made by someone else under the Creative Commons License.
Acid Express is free loop-based software for the PC only (it is made my Sony).
Mac’s come free with GarageBand.
Loops are provided for free at AcidPlanet (which is owned by Sony). New loops are put up every Friday. Check back weekly to build a free library of loops. (These loops can be used in GarageBand.)
If you don’t want make your own music, find music that musical artists have listed their work under the Creative Commons license. Find a number of sources at Creative Commons Legal Music for Videos
Check out FreeMusicArchive.org. Search by genre. Electronic music may work well as film music.
NewGrounds.com has a free audio section. Musicians upload their music and invite you to use it in your projects. You just can’t make money off of it and you must give the musician credit.
Musopen.org has free .mp3 file of classical music that you can use.
Mr. Clark also has a selection of royalty free music and sound effects. Ask him about it.
MovieStorm is a storyboard and pre-viz animation software for both the PC and Mac. This has a lot of potential as stand alone animation program. (This used to be free but now has a fee.)
You can also hand-draw your storyboards using a template that you can print from your computer.
2-D SOFTWARE
Pencil is free software that is fairly easy to learn. It works on both the Mac and PC. Check out this YouTube tutorial on how to use it. For additional information check out this brief user’s manual.
GoAnimate is free web-based 2-D animation software that uses pre-made backgrounds and characters. You don’t download the application because it is web-based. This has creative limitations, but may be fun to just play around with. You cannot export out the final product (unless you use some type of screen capture software or videotape it from your computer monitor).
AniBoom’s Shapeshifter is another free web-based 2-D animation program that allows you to create frame-by-frame animation using only four geometric shapes. You will actually learn more about animation from this program than from GoAnimate. They have a series of animation lessons that are definitely worth checking out.
Papagayo is a
free lip-syncing program designed to help you line up phonemes (mouth shapes)
with the actual recorded sound of actors speaking. Papagayo makes it easy to
lip sync animated characters by making the process very simple - just type in
the words being spoken (or copy/paste them from the animation's script), then
drag the words on top of the sound's waveform until they line up with the
proper sounds. After syncing up mouth
shapes with actual sounds, Papagayo can then export the result for use with
Anime Studio. Papagayo is available for
Mac and Windows. You can purchase Anime
Studio Debut at student price of $29.95, or you can use Papagayo on top of
a PhotoShop or Gimp file if you have multi-layered video editing software, such
as Final Cut Pro/Express.
3-D SOFTWARE
A note about 3-D animation applications: The industry standard applications are 3ds Max and Maya. These cost a lot, but are available for sale at a student discount from education software retailers. (You may also have a chance to win this software from animation contests.)
Below are some free software options. Building and rigging 3D models can be quite
an endeavor. (Take a CAD class at
Blender is free Open Source 3D software. It has a steep learning curve, but is capable of professional level work. It is available for both the Mac and the PC. Check out some of the amazing short films that have been made with it.
The Blender website has a deep selection of training videos and other materials.
Blender-tuts is a website that has every Blender tutorial available.
Check out these video tutorials and see if it is something you want to try.
You can use the Blender Model Repository to find free models. Also search BlenderModels.org.
To export out a realistic image, you must use a render engine. Renders can take a really long time. Blender has a good render engine, but you should also consider downloading a specialized renderer. These include LuxRender (which is open source) and Kerkythea. Both are free.
DAZ 3D
Studio is a free, feature rich 3D figure design and 3D animation tool that
enables anyone to create stunning digital imagery. This is the perfect tool to
design unique digital art and animation using virtual people, animals, props,
vehicles, accessories, environments and more. Simply select your subject and/or
setting, arrange accessories, setup lighting, and begin creating beautiful
artwork. This company makes their money
by selling 3D models that others design.
It has limitations in that it is designed primarily for characters, but
is one of the easiest to learn.
The company that makes DAZ Studio also makes a relatively
inexpensive and easy to learn 3-D application Carrara. The
We have Carrara Pro in the Mac Lab.
Muvizu (pronounced
“movie zoo”) is free 3D software for Windows only. It offers a cast of
characters awaiting commands to run, jump and walk through prebuilt sets while
lip-syncing lines of imported dialogue.
The software, based on
videogame engine Unreal
Engine 3 and works only on systems that run Windows 7, Vista or XP. To help
animators master the easy-to-use program, the Muvizu website provides tutorial
videos, discussion forums and collaboration tools for registered members
They have a series of tutorial videos to get you started.
MakeHuman (TM) is an open source (so it's completely free), innovative and professional software for the modeling of 3-Dimensional humanoid characters. Features that make this software unique include a new, highly intuitive GUI and a high quality mesh, optimized to work in subdivision surface mode (for example, Zbrush). Using MakeHuman, a photorealistic character can be modeled in less than 2 minutes; MakeHuman is released under an Open Source Licence (GPL3.0) , and is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
TrueSpace was supported by Microsoft as free 3-D software for Windows. They have discontinued their support, but it remains available for free with no need for a serial number.
You can use TurboSquid.com to find models, most are for sale but set the Price filter to Free and search specifically for TruSpace models
Google SketchUp is a free 3D drawing application from Google that is available for both the Mac and PC. (SketchUp Pro has a cost.) This has limited usefulness for animation, but a creative person can find some value in it. Using the Scenes feature will allow see an animated view of your design. Read how it can be used in Film and Television.
There are a number of third party plug-ins that can improve the Sketch-up image.
The free Film & Stage plugin includes an enhanced camera tool and several pre-viz components that enable rapid development of studio sets. Choose from an array of cameras, lights, dollies, cranes, grips, characters and more. Use the enhanced Camera feature to quickly and easily plan shots, calculate camera angles, and obtain a 3D visual of the scene before filming. Watch this video about how it works.
To order render realistic surfaces and animate the items, you will need to install a third party plug-in.
SU Animate is an animation plug-in for SketchUp Pro Windows and Mac. This simple application works inside SketchUp and automatically creates scenes that you can play as an animation in SketchUp or export to an AVI or MOV video file. It cost $79 bucks.
Use a digital still camera (not a video camera) to shoot your movie. Use a tripod to keep your camera steady. There are 30 frames a second in video, so shoot 10 still photos second. This is 600 still photos for a minute or video. Import these photo files (.jpg) into your video editing software. Be sure to set application to make the length of each clip 3 frames long before you import them.
One way to do do stop motion animation is to use clay. Claymation isn’t going to be free. You will need to buy oil-based modeling clay. This is sometimes called plasticine clay, which can be found locally at crafts stores such as JoAnn or Michaels. Common brands include Crayola Modeling Clay. You want clay that is listed as oil-based and “non-hardening.” This type of clay doesn’t dry out.
Larger qualities of clay at better prices may be found online at such places as Dick Blick Art Supply or Discount School Supply (Dick Blick makes and inexpensive plasticine clay. A higher quality clay with brighter colors is Van Aken’s ClayToons
The animator who coined the term claymation is Will Vinton. This video gives a background on his work. See this example he did for Halloween. Also see this creepy version of Mark Twains’ Mysterious Stranger.
There are a lot of claymation examples on YouTube. See this claymation example done as a TV promo for the Ghost Whisperer. See this music video for Trapt.
PowerPoint has been used to
create some effective animations. Check PowerPoint Heaven, an
organization in
GIMP is the most powerful free photo editor available today.
Often called as the "free Photoshop," the GIMP does offer some
features similar to Photoshop, but it has an easier learning curve. There are versions for both Mac and PC.
You can see a list of other free image editors at this link at About.com
A free public beta download for the open source Lightworks is available for Windows and soon for the Mac. This is a professional level editor. This will have a bit of a learning curve, but is worth learning because it will give you a pro editor…for free. This software is early in its redevelopment, so expect some bugs.
Basic editing can be done with Windows Movie Maker, which comes free for Windows PCs. If you are missing it, you can download it from the Microsoft website.
Macs come free with iMovie, a basic movie editor.
If you have a Windows PC, and want more powerful video editor that also does compositing, try DebugMode Wax. This is freeware that has some similarities to Adobe After Effects. Do a search on YouTube and you can find how create fireballs and the light saber effect.
An animatic can be edited first and then you can build your film around it.
GAME DESIGN
If you are interested in the field of game design, then download Unity. It is a game engine used by such companies as EA and Disney. They offer a free version.
Game Salad is a free game designed for the Mac that requires no coding.
Alice is software that teaches the principles of game design. It is used in Game Design mini course taught at Franklin.
Enter your work in a regional competition. Winning is a great thing to list on your resume and college application letters.
Monterey Bay Film Festival (Deadline end of January) CSU Monterey – For ages 13-19 – Films five minutes or less.
Teen Digital Reel (Deadline: February 25, 2011)
Sacramento International Film Festival (Future Visionaries: Deadline Feb. 28, 2010)
SEVA Awards (Deadline: March 4, 2011)
Lark Theater Annual Youth Film Festival (Deadline March 4, 2011)
Elk Grove Artists – Elk Grove Western Festival (11 & 12 Grade Only) (Deadline: Feb 28, 2011)
Animation can be entered in Short Film Category in Computer Technology
Animation can be entered in either the Industrial Tech or Art categories.
All Youth Film Festival (Deadline July 2011)
Bay Street Animation Festival (Deadline usually in October- not funded in 2010)
Think about uploading your work online for the whole world to see.