The Teachers' Animation Toolkit

119
Stage 2: Production
The students adopted a wide range of animation styles. One 
team used bluescreen techniques to integrate their pixilated 
characters into a cut-out and live action world. We used a 
portable bluescreen system, available from Backdropsource 
for around £220. Details here:
http://www.backdropsource.co.uk/Productinfo.
asp?id=727&pname=3mx-6.3m-chroma-key-blue-muslin-
backdrop-with-a-stand
Other teams used a variety of cut-out and drawn animation 
techniques.
Stage 3: Post-Production
For the examples shown on the companion website (SOW 3: Music 
Videos) a professional composer helped the students write their 
songs and edit them to the animations. The software used was Acid 
Pro 6, published by Sony, used alongside a collection of DVD-based 
sound samples. Acid Pro retails for around £125 for an educational 
licence, and is targeted at both professionals and serious amateurs. 
(The sound sample libraries must be purchased separately.) A free 
alternative sound editing package, for schools on a tight budget, is 
Audacity. See p. 132 for further details.
Lyrics and live instruments were recorded directly onto the laptop 
hard drives, using Acid Pro, and an external microphone.
The fi nished songs were exported as wav format fi les into Adobe 
Premiere Pro or Pinnacle Studio, where the animations were edited 
to the songs. The students completed their own editing, with support 
from a professional animator. The more able students were able 
to quickly learn the basics of editing themselves, without extensive 
guidance.
Stage 4: Assessment
For assessment guidance, see the previous scheme of work. 
In addition to this, we asked the students to evaluate their own work 
using this format:

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