Neka - my final film

At the end of the course, we had to make our own film. We had a bit more than 2 weeks to make it. You might think it's short - it is not.

Here is the result of my weeks of hard work, from 9 in the morning, 'til 4 in the afternoon.




I am happy with my result and proud of it, eventhough things could have been better.
The music in the film is specially made for it - thank you Antira, for that! It couldn't be better.

I really enjoyed working on the movie, so I might make more movies at home, when I have time... (:

The end

Look at this... More than a month ago since I last posted something...
Wow.
I just didn't have to time for it. We were having so much fun here, that time flew by.

I will try to give you a quick look on what happened.

In October it was the autumn holiday.
With a bunch of friends I made here, we went on citytrips to Oslo, Stockholm & Copenhagen.
That was a really amazing week we had!

 

After that, I had an internship in a Danish school. Together with Andrei and Casper, we had to teach animation to teenagers of 15 years old. 

And in the end of October we went to LEGOLAND! It was really nice!

Also, not to forget, it was my birthday on the 27th...

So I asked some people to go and play laser-tag. I had never done that before, but it was really nice! I kinda won....

In November we had to write a report about our internship.
We also had to start our final movie (see post above).

As being part of the social committee, we had some budget left and organized a trip  to Aarhus.
There we went to Den Gamle By, a part of Aarhus that they rebuilt as it was a long time ago. It was nice to see. But I also wanted to go to the art museum, ARoS.
That museum was really really nice. I liked the exhibitions that were there at the moment.

 

But right now, as I'm writing this, already about half of the people left here... I am leaving in four days... FOUR DAYS!
I don't want to leave this all behind...

Movie n° 5: L IV E

Last two weeks we worked on a class animation.
The technique we used was hand drawing. That means you have to draw every frame by hand.

Well... I 'cheated' a little bit on that. I scanned both my background and my main character and then used photoshop to place the character on every background.

Here is the result of the class movie.




My part is in the Water part, where the seagull lands on the water.

Life size puppet

Today we had class from Gert, about puppet animation.

As part of the class, we had to create a life size puppet out of newspapers and tape.

The limbs had to be separate.

Here some pictures of our work.

 

 

After that we had to animate our puppet.

Each person had to move a limb.

I moved a leg.

Through coördination we managed to make the puppet walk kinda 'natural'.

All the others students who saw us walking around with the puppet probably thought we were crazy, but I don't care! :)

Here a final picture of our lovely class, the puppets and our teacher!

Movie n° 4: Creation

Movie n° 3: The End

 

Workshop with young children

This Wednesday we had to work with children from the kindergarten.
They were around 5 years old.
When they came into he room they were shown a few animation movies we made.
After that they got a short introduction to the steps you have to make during the process of making an animation movie.

1. Idea 

2. Synopsis 

3. Storyboard 

4. Background 

5. Characters 

6. Animating 

7. Sound

After that they were split into groups of five.
The children had to take the puppet they brought and try to put them in a way so they expressed some feelings (happy, sad, …).
Then they also had to do it with their own face.

After that their puppets had to walk and greet each other.
When they got to know their puppet and were a little more comfortable they had to come up with a story with the characters.
They chose two bad guys, a good one, and two Princesses.

When they know the story completely each child had to draw a part of the story for the storyboard. After that they had to place the drawings in the right order.

 

Then the staging began.
We made a background and placed the camera. And finally we could take pictures.
Each child moved it’s own character.

At last an adult can edit the frames a little bit, if the timing isn’t right.

My thoughts about the day: 
It really is difficult to communicate with children if you don’t know their language!
Also, we ourselves didn’t really know what to do, so I think next time would go a lot better.

The creating of the story took us really long.
Also drawing took long, but I don’t mind that.
Because of the drawing they drew themselves they are more connected to the movie and they learn a lot more.
Also because they had to place the drawings in the right order. So they really know what the story is about.

The moving itself was a little bit difficult in the beginning, the children moved their puppets a lot. But still, after a while they got it, I think. I hope the children had something about this morning, although they did not finish their entire movie.

Movie n° 2: Hopefully Alive

A normal day at the pond

The second movie was made with cut-out animation.
During the making of the film we had some problems with the team, but the result is really good!
I'm proud of my movie! ^^

Ringkøbing

Today we went on a trip to Ringkøbing.

It's a village at the west coast of Denmark.

We went there because we needed to get our residence permit.
When we stay for more then four months in Denmark, we need that.

And since it's quite a long drive, the school made it a trip.
We visited the village, went to the lighthouse a few villages further and walked on the beach.
 

 

After that we visited a Folkhøjskole. 

It's some kind of an art school where you can follow courses from three to eight months.
The school is very ecological, they produce their own electricity and heath with solar panels, a windmill and geothermal heathing.
They also have a big field with trees, vegetables, herbs, ...
All maintained by volunteers.

It was really nice!

This here is the outdoor kitchen in their garden.

It was a fun and exhausting day!
I love our group of international students! 

Puppet Camp

Last two days was Puppet Camp!

We went with the bus to Ørre, about 50km from Viborg.
There we stayed in some sort of cabin, an old school. 

'Ørre Naturskole'.

It was located next to a small forest, and there were also some hens, goats en geese. 

Thursday we had to come up with a story and make the puppets for the story. The group where I was in based our story on Hansel & Gretel. Only the two main characters became animals.

My puppet was a mouse, the other was a cat. And then there was the witch.

Here some progress of my puppet.

 

On Thursday evening we had a bonfire. Really nice, although my clothes smell kinda smokey.

 

The next morning we had to get op really early and start rehearsing our play.

At 10h30 the children arrived.

Nine children all around the age of five.

We all played without words, only with sounds, because they can not understand English and we can not speak Danish.

The food was lovely! Really, the best camp food ever!

Those were two great - but tiring - days!

Movie n°1: A teapot in Paris

Pixilation

Today we had our first 'real' animation class.
We learned about pixilation!
It's actually stop motion, but you use objects that you bring to life by using animation.

Tomorrow we have a day to make an animation in a group of three.
What will that become...?

Today we also had our first Danish class!
This is the first thing we learned:

"Hej, jeg hedder Aagje! Hvad hedder du?"

It means: "Hey, my name is Aagje! What's your name?"

We laughed a lot with the pronunciation!
It's really strange!

In our spare time we sometimes play volleyball. It hurts a lot!
This evening I played for the second time this week. My wrists feel like a big bruise.
But it's fun!

Having a good time here in Denmark!
See you next post!

First day

Today was the first day of 'school'.
It was an introduction day, like the rest of the week.

We started in a nice classroom, with comfortable chairs. Not like those in Belgium!
There the teachers and coordinators were presented to us. We also had to present ourselves.
Almost half of the Erasmus students are from Romania.

Then we were offered some breakfast, buns and cheese, tea and coffee.
I didn't eat anything, because I already had breakfast. Who would think you get breakfast on your first day of school?

After breakfast there was a treasure hunt!
We had to answer some questions about school and the answers were found within the building.
That was a way to get us to know our way in school.
My partner and me ended fourth! (The winners got a VIA University College pen)

Then the two modules (Animation as a Learning Tool and Social Entrepreneurship) were presented to us.
We also got some information about other things for school.

The students were getting their Green Card (student card). I did not.
I never got a mail to fill in a form for the card! So I don't have one yet, have to wait...

With our Green Card we can get discount on some food in the cafetaria.
We also can enter the school and almost every room in the building with it, whenever we want. During the day, at night, in the weekend, ... Even the music room, a room with like eight acoustic guitars, two electric guitars, two bass guitars, two pianos, two drums, micros, ... All for us to use!

In the end we had to sing a song. It was an African song (so nobody would know it) the music teacher thought us really fast. Although I forgot it already, it was fun.

Oh yeah, we also got some homework. We need to read a text on the Danish welfare state.
Already read it!