global digital creativity research & workshops

I had the pleasure of working Friday the 15th and Saturday the 16th of February in Northern Ireland with our friends at BBC Blast Northern Ireland in Belfast working with NIDYA (Northern Ireland Deaf Youth Association) to create a film about a monkey escaping from the zoo.

My role was to work with the mixed group of teenagers to film the animation section of the film. Working through interpretors we had a great two days animating in a television studio.

The young people involved in the project lived locally, some were deaf. Filming also took part at Belfast Zoo, and the team were challenged to integrate real filming with cuts to animation.

We used a Sony Z1 camera linked up to an Apple computer running the brilliant iStopMotion.

The young people involved in the project demonstrated clear animation talent with lots of ideas and ways of overcoming challenges with the story and continuity. The final animation sequences were quite simply brilliant, well done gang. Big thanks to Sue Barry and her team from NIDYA and also to Emma, Emma and John from Blast.

Here are the pictures I took over the two day project.

I’ll link here the completed film when the BBC have finished putting together the final edit.

Here are the other projects I’ve been involved in Northern Ireland:

• October 2006: BBC Northern Ireland Mental Health Campaign.
• June 2006: BBC Blast Truck, Belfast.
• June 2006: BBC Blast Truck, Derry.
• July 2003: Peace Project Film Project, Belfast.

Cleveratom were thrilled to work with the City Collage Norwich staff in a Clay Animation and Music workshop for 20 of the team. Rugroom staff work with young people on the AS at the college.

In 7 groups, each of around 4 RugRoom teaching staff, Matthew Eaves and myself were on hand as each group worked with iStopMotion to produce a short animation with music composed themselves in GarageBand.

The final products produced by each group, viewable below, are the work of about 3 hours each with a MacBook- learning to use the software they progressed.Finally as a surprise to the group, we asked for pictures of some of the staff to create a seasonal gift to the collage.

Cleveratom have been working with Rugroom students for the past six months to develop a social learning space, workshops and an online environment.

Here is a bit of fun we’ve had with JibJab….

And here is the completed work:

 Blue Balls: Play Now | Play in Popup
 DIT animae: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Fish Pond: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Making Babies: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Father Christmas' Revenge: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Nothing like a cup of tea: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Wayne and ED: Play Now | Play in Popup

Hal MacLean and myself were delighted to be invited to UEA (University of East Anglia) in Norwich to deliver a Clay Animation and Music Session to a group of 24 students and staff. The applications we explored and worked with during the session were:

• iStopMotion
• GarageBand
• iMovie
• iTunes

It was the second week of the new UEA Multimedia Course, and the new students did really well.

Cleveratom continue to run digital creativity workshops and training sessions all over the globe, check our our track record in this field.

Here are the completed films produced in under three hours:

 Catterpillar: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Real Deal: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Sunny Day: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Snake: Play Now | Play in Popup

The feature stand exists to simply demonstrate creative use of technology within learning. Last year BETT attracted 27,000 visitors from all over the world to its two thousand stands.Students from King Harold School were on hand to help visitors make podcasts, using the latest chroma key technology from our friends at Reflecmedia.

Visitors were able to stand in front of a chroma wall with selected moving image being rendered live behind them straight into Apple’s iMovie software.

Click the right hand news article image to read what reporter Stephen Manning from the TES had to say about the young people working on the Create at BETT stand:

The young people working on the stand worked with the show visitors to film their ideas and then upload the newly created podcast file to the Digital Teacher Network (DTN). DTN remains as a free space for creative teachers to manage their projects online.

All the podcasts created on the ‘Create at BETT’ stand can be viewed on the ‘Create at BETT DTN Project‘.

All DTN project media files work with iTunes, and are therefore available to download as podcasts onto iPod technology.At the other end of the stand young people worked to demonstrate the brilliant iStopMotion animation software and the potential for using creative technology in the classroom. iStopMotion is so simple and easy to use, yet so powerful too. A wonderful piece of innovative software.

Cleveratom was represented on the stand working closely with the team from BBC Blast, Learning Central, Apple, eMap and the BCS. All these partners believe in creative use of new and emerging technology in learning and we’re proud to work along side them.

I’ve enjoyed the past six years on the stand, clicking here will take you back to the stand in 2002 where we explored web broadcasting technologies.

We’ve done something new and experimental on the stand every year since, it has always been staffed by young people. Here is last years article on BETT 2006.

Cleveratom’s Alex Blanc and Jamie Harris were on hand to support visitors wanting to learn more about the potential of enabling technologies. Alex built Digital Teacher Network from Open Source Software and spent a lot of time explaining to visitors how it worked and what they could do with it. Maureen Gurr was on hand to look after the young people, Fiona from Impact also did an amazing logistical job to make it all happen.

Cleveratom staff have also worked closely with David Baugh and BBC Blast to support the young people prior to coming to the show. The training session held before Christmas in the BBC’s 21CC (21st Century Classroom) were a huge success. Creativity and School Learning Space Design Consultant, Hal MacLean reflects on the performance of the young people:

As ever, King Harold School pupils were brilliant! Their enthusiasm, infectious energy and determination to succeed meant that the stand never had a dull moment. Many thanks to Malcolm Burnett for organising the group and being there with them.

Read more of what Hal has to say here.

View Matthew’s Pictures from BETT 2007

View even more of Hal’s Pictures from BETT 2007

Check out some of the podcasts below, also available on the Create at BETT DTN Project site:

 Mountain Report: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Duncan: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Worms: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Domizio: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Man and Girl: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Eating the Sky: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Weather Report: Play Now | Play in Popup

Although Ultralab is now not my employer (Click here to find out why) the company I now work for will continue the work we started at Ultralab in the field of Digital Creativity. Cleveratom Ltd will continue to undertake groundbreaking global research into how learning can be made better using new and emerging technologies. The example work below is exactly the kind of stuff Cleveratom now does, along with online social software and school design.

Find out how the BBC 2 Wales ident animations were created by visiting this link.

Here are the finished products that were a part of the Christmas festive season on BBC 2W, linking in between each programme on the network. All made in clay and by six year old children, you really need to watch these, click ‘Play Now’ below!!!:

 Watch the Animations! [1:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

Hal MacLean and myself spent this evening with the young people and their families from the Bromley Learning Alliance 2006 Summer School, in Bromley. We headed down to celebrate the animation work created by the young people over the summer months.

The challenge which was set back in July this year was to create a modern day comic book, in animation, photography, sound and film.  The ‘tough task’ was called ‘Twist of Fate’ and had ‘no right answer’, as ever.  The young people are giving an induction session to the technology and project, they then return to their collective schools over the summer to undertake the challenge.
We have been working with Merril Haeusler (Director) of the BLA since her days with SEEVEAZ (South East of England Virtual Education Action Zone). It was refreshing to see Merril at the event, and hearing her relate back to the early days back in 2000 when she first launched the project with us. If it had not been for the investment by Merril both financially, and more importantly her belief in what young people can do with creative technoloies I really do question where we would be today. As my last official presentation event for Ultralab it was nice to be in the company with Merrill, who was at my first ever Ultralab engagement back in 2000, at the Millennium Dome in London (Read about it here).

We’ve come a long way since that early project, travelled the world, impacted on broadcasters, governments, education establishments and policy makers. We still have a lot of work to do, together.

So here they are, the creative comics created under the banner of ‘Twist of Fate’ by the tallented young people of the Bromley area, enjoy:

 Changing Dreams: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Space Pigs: Play Now | Play in Popup
 The Restless Race: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Twist of Fate: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Unlucky Lottery Ticket: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Wacky William: Play Now | Play in Popup
 World Cup 2006: Play Now | Play in Popup

The 14th, 15th and 16th of November now stand out as some of the best days in my career so far. We’ve worked long and hard to persue governments, broadcasters and education institutions to promote the fact that children are very creative when united with the power of enabling technologies.

BBC Wales initiated a pilot project to find out what idents could look like if Children created idents themselves, using stop frame clay animation.

I spent last Wednesday (8 November) at BBC Broadcasting House in Cardiff working with various team members from 2W to work out how the technology being used could be enabled for 16:9 (widescreen) viewing. To the right is how the ident will be placed on the work created by the children. We have decided to use Apple Computers running iStopMotion animation software and Sony XM1 camera technology. All of the work will be created in widescreen, our experiment worked. It has been decided that the background the children will animate in front of will be yellow, music will also be added in post production.So how would a six year old make an ident anyway?

Geraint Lang from the team and myself spent three enjoyable days at Caerleon Infant School near Newport, Wales, with Susan Wood and her team from BBC Wales. The demountable classroom had been tranformed for the event which would see young people creating the idents for BBC 2W (the Welsh version of BBC 2 in Wales).

Geraint and I spent the Tuesday afternoon with the group of thirty young people talking to them about animation and what the challenge was that they had been set.

On Wednesday and Thursday we took the now split group of children (15 per day) forward providing them with the clay, technology (computers and cameras) and backdrop to generate their animations.

Over the three day period the young people were challenged to make a 12 second animation in clay on a yellow background, the title they were challenged to make was ‘What Christmas means to me’. Snowmen, Father Christmas, Sledges, Presents and even Santa in the Bath were all created and constructed.

The music for the animations, which is rumoured to be ‘Jingle Bells’ will be recorded at a nearby Secondary School. The animations will hopefully be a part of the Christmas schedule for BBC 2W, the background of programme announcements.
As previously posted Hal MacLean and myself had conducted the research for this project at the Cressing Primary School, near Braintree, Essex.

Here are three of the completed 37 animations, minus the 2W logo which is soon to be added:

 Father Christmas Eating his Dinner: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Snowman Football: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Snowman Walking: Play Now | Play in Popup

I spent today (Friday 27th October) and yesterday at BBC Northern Ireland in Belfast working with the BBC Blast team on a new pilot project for BBC One NI’s Mental Health Campaign.

I worked closely with Emma Majury and Rod from the local college to create a 90 second animation which followed a soundbite story of a person who had recovered from depression.

We spent Thursday planning, Friday morning buliding sets and the afternoon animating. We filmed the entire sequence in reverse scene order, then strung it together in iMovie and added the sound.

I have previously worked in Northern Ireland on the BBC Blast Truck in 2006 with Emma and the team, in 2003 Richard Millwood, Anthony Russell, Martin Doherty and myself undertook a cross-community summer school programme.

 View the first draft of the movie with sound: Play Now | Play in Popup
 View the completed movie with sound and music: Play Now | Play in Popup

Hal MacLean and Matthew Eaves from the team spent the day with Class 2 at Cressing Primary School to undertake some experimental research into clay animation with six year olds. Mrs Harris and her classroom assistants were a great help throughout the day as fourteen six year old pupils took part.

Click the above images to enlarge them.

The objective of the day was to find out how six year olds coped with an animation task, learning the skills of model making, story construction and then using computers and digital video camera equipment to animate their story.

The session was the pilot for a larger project which will be held in Cardiff next month, which we will post more about here at digitalcreativity.org when the time comes.

Hal and myself will be writing a paper on our findings. The learning from this experiment has already changed our plans for BBC Wales.

Everyone involved in the project will recieve their creative work on DVD, created using iDVD, here is a screenshot of the DVD in production:

(Click image to enlarge)

We would like to thank Sue Giles, Head Teacher at the school for welcoming us into the school at such short notice.

Here are the files created on the day:

 Group 1 (Animation 1): Play Now | Play in Popup
 Group 1 (Animation 2): Play Now | Play in Popup
 Group 2: Play Now | Play in Popup
 Group 3 (Animation 1): Play Now | Play in Popup
 Group 3 (Animation 2): Play Now | Play in Popup
 Group 4 (Animation 1): Play Now | Play in Popup
 Group 4 (Animation 2): Play Now | Play in Popup
 Ultralab Example : Play Now | Play in Popup
 Meanwhile Martin Hodder at Ravens Wood School in Bromley, Kent created this brilliant experimental animation:: Play Now | Play in Popup

Today the Saffron Walden County High School and Partner Primary Schools came to Ultralab to spend the day with myself and Hal MacLean to work on the DVD case designs of their Summer School project. For this challenge the young people involved in the project learned how to work with the Photo Shop application.

Thirty young people spent the day at the lab, showcasing the work they had achieved over the summer period. The work will go on display to an evening audience at a cinema in Cambridge later this year.

Some of the young people were tasked with making a DVD containing all of the work, this process was done using Apple’s iDVD.

Click here to read about the first time the group of young people were at Ultralab for their training session and challenge setting exercise.

Click here to read about the First Day of the Summer School on August 3rd.

Here is the DVD art created by the groups, while at Ultralab, to reflect the content of their completed films:

Click to expand the images.

Some of the groups also completed a DVD Disc image:

The Summer Challenge, which is set by Ultralab was called “Outside the Box”.

We invite the young people on the project to add comments below to introduce their work before we actually post their completed projects here on the site.

Well done everyone, exceptional work.