Here is a video that some 10 year olds made when I helped out in an ICT club. It was made with an old Intel Play Camera (Digital Blue) using a form of stop motion known as paper cutout. For more ideas on this kind of animation see my website.
If, like me, you have been waiting for something to replace your ageing copy of Digital Blue's rather horrible Movie Creator software, then look no further. ZU3D version 3 has arrived and after a couple of days of playing around with it I am smitten.
I've had the original version for a while and my 10 year old son has found it very easy to use. I was always impressed with the friendly interface and the simplicity, but for me there were a few things missing in the original version; I frequently found myself using other software in addition. But not any longer!
The developers have managed to maintain the simple interface but have added so many more features (live video, time lapse, chroma key, multiple time lines to name but a few). You can even draw animations or import animated gifs which makes creating your own special effects a real possibility.
An exploding meerkat courtesy of ZU3D
So, now you can do stop motion, live video, and 'movie maker style' editing all in one package just like you could (ish) with the Digital Blue software - except ZU3D does it all so much better.
Do your school or your home a favour and check out the website. I only have the software, but their animation kit including camera, software, sets, green screen and plasticine looks like a good deal to me.
This is a great little video project for kids using a crystal growing kit. The one we used was called Shangri-La and came from John Lewis a while ago, but there are plenty of similar kits around. As well as the kit, you will need a webcam, time lapse software and video editing software (we used free software).
Magic Garden - just one example of many crystal growing kits available
All you need to do is assemble the kit, setup your camera and software, pour on the special liquids and leave for about 10 hours.
Once the wait is over, import the photos into the video editing software, edit, save and play.
For this one, we used the Microsoft Lifecam Studio webcam, Yawcam software (free) and Windows Live Movie Maker. Instructions for using Yawcam can be found on my website here. Movie Maker is a free download for Windows 7 and is very simple to use. Earlier versions of Windows shipped with (imho) a better but more complicated version of Movie Maker. I will be adding more time lapse ideas to my website soon.
