By: Natasha Vango

Making Animatics

Description

• Students will adapt written and drawn storyboarding into an animation through coding considering music, pacing, editing, camera angles, etc.
• Part of a unit focused on film or visual language, this can function as a culminating assignment or group project.

Introduction

1. Show students this music video “The Stranger” Official Video – Gord Downie – Secret Path. Prompt students with guiding questions: What do you notice about the shots of this music video? (Wide shots? Close ups? Tracking Shot) What kind of movement is the character doing? (Walk cycle? Facial expressions?)What is happening with the music? The scenery?

Working on it

1. Students will create their own storyboards first. This can be done on paper or using a digital tool such as Canva; Storyboards will have the options of being: a) A music video to a song relating to the theme of the unit B) A scene or trailer inspired by one of the texts from the unit C) A different interpretation of a piece of media from the unit i.e the perspective of a different character or if a different choice was made.
2. Together: students and the teacher will use scratch cards (Animate a character, Change Backdrops, Grow and Shrink) to experiment with animating a walk cycle based on “The Stranger” adding in music, scenery transitions, and using Variables and Stamping to experiment with shifting the “camera angles” of Scratch.
3. Students will be given scratch cards on how to animate a walk cycle or a story. Students will adapt their storyboards using these scratch cards.
4. Students will share their animatics with a partner to test for bugs and complete a quick peer assessment for: Comprehension, Creativity (use of music, scenery, pacing, dialogue etc), and Code (Is it nested? Is it efficient?)

Consolidation

1. Students will share their animations/animatics with the rest of the class
2. Students will complete a reflection, noting what students liked about their animatics, what kinds of code they noticed in other projects etc.

Resource Information:

Tags: English, Creative writing, Media studies, FNMI, Scratchcards

Main Subject: English

Other Integrated Subjects: Media Studies, Potential FNMI Connections, History (dependent on media or theme)

Grade(s): 6, 7,8, 9, 10,

Learning to Code: Yes

Coding to Learn: No

URL Link to Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1137932593