Teacher for a Day

Last Friday was a special day for us animation students (ie. the three people who actually attend and didn't go off to Turkey in the middle of the term). Students from Hereford Cathedral School, aged about 14/15 I think, came over to university to have a look at the animation course.

After the tutor gave the kids a tour around the place (during which I acquired a sandwich for needed energy purposes), we got into the meat of the day, the Stop Motion class, in which we were the teachers. It was great to get a go at stop motion, which I hadn't touched since my module in the first year. After getting a quick briefing on what buttons did what on the software, I got right into it, showing the kids how to do the animations. After a few little demos with my hand and a nearby pen, as well as a little demonstration on easing/cushioning, we got into the real fun aspect, modelling clay.

We started off by doing a little animation of your basic stick figure, with me suggesting elements such as easing in the waving motions, moving the little dude backwards when he's doing his kick and finally...erm... exploding.

By the time we got into the next animation, the kids really started to shine, animating a little robot that, after some random suggestions from yours truly, takes a rather disturbing path. They were really getting the hang of things at this point, even throwing in little touches such as the rabbit doing a little hop and twitching his ears. Needless to say, it's one of the more hilarious things I've seen/made this year, and the way the kids responded to the improv was swell.

After lunch came my time to shine; a flash masterclass with yours truly. I didn't have a massively huge timeslot to do it in, so after a quick explanation about the stuff I do, and a quick showing of my showreel, I got into the class, showing off the basic tools and how to tween objects. Teaching is definately a challenging thing to do, as a lot of the time I would point to the screen at some points, instead of demonstrating it with the mouse so it would be shown on the projector. Another aspect I had to consider is that these kids don't know what words like 'tweening' means, so slowing down my pace to fit theirs was challenging stuff. Still, when I hear a collective 'wow' from when I make something move across the screen, that sure is something. Particular given how tweening is generally whined about on the websites I usually go onto. It was a fun experience and, had I a bit more time, I'd certainly like to go into it a bit more.

At the end of the day, we decided to do some last minute stop motioning, and by this time the kids had really gotten into it and didn't even need my assistance in making their new animation involving a burglar escaping from jail, only to trigger and alarm and get squished by giant fist before his entrails are eaten by a frog (which I forgot to snag on my flash drive >_>). Said frog then exploded in a mass of beads, but that's a tale for another day.

All in all, definately an interesting experience.