Moviestorm in Education: Long Road College, Cambridge

Students from Long Road Sixth Form College recently completed their animation coursework videos using Moviestorm.

The Level 2 Media students were asked to come up with a short three to four minute moving image product using Moviestorm. The groups gave initial ideas into a typed proposal and from this generated storyboards and in some cases design sheets. They then moved on to producing their final videos, which can be watched here.

Two groups (3 & 4), one all boys and the other mostly girls, chose a scenario about teenage party life. Two groups (1B & 2) chose to do a music-based production, a music video and a reality music TV show. The last group (1A), ventured an ambitious first episode of a ‘Youtube’ style series.

 Long Road Media teacher Steve Thorne said:

"Great time and effort was spent adding the small details. One example was the music video group’s work to recreate the band to look the same as the real one! After working with Moviestorm again this year I think working in pairs generates the best results and group time management."
 
Before the final Moviestorm videos were produced, the groups of students worked on either the characters or settings and then brought them together to add the camerawork and action.

Steve chose Moviestorm to give the students the opportunity to work with a 3D animation software so they didn’t have the same limited scope of the usual video productions shooting scenes around the college. He added:

"This was their chance to use filmmaking techniques in a virtual setting. They also had complete control over every element within their production. I think the generated animations link well to game design and advanced 3D animation software packages."

"Overall it’s been a fantastic resource for the course. The students have really taken to it and enjoyed the production work very much. It’s definitely going to be built into the course more next year!" 

 The initial production stages followed the Moviestorm six-stage production process. All groups were very committed to the ‘Sims’ style character design stage and the production of the virtual settings. CEO of Moviestorm Andrew Kennedy said:

"The students at Long Road demonstrated a rapid development of filmmaking skills and final sophistication between their demos and final movies, and it is nice to see ideas that were formulated whilst they initially played with the software for the first time coming through in their final pieces. 

Steve Thorne needs to be congratulated in creating this module, as it is giving the students an opportunity to test and develop their individual filmmaking skills without the normal logistical and budgetary restrictions, from production design and casting, into scene direction and camerawork, and through to sound design and editing skills. We hope to see more collaborations and films from this group of students, and look forward to supporting Long Road Sixth Form College into the future."

Further links

Final videos here: https://vimeo.com/album/2367854

Demo videos here: https://vimeo.com/album/2302569

Flickr Album here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30136544@N08/sets/72157633378985852/

2013 Harb40 Film Passion Competition

Moviestorm are pleased to promote and sponsor the film animation 2013 Harb40 Passion Competition.

The competition urges contestants to make a film set to a specific theme of passion. There are some restrictions on content, but films can be made using any animation program, video game or live action technique. The winning films receive software prizes and the creators will be interviewed on The Movies On Air Radio show.

This year's theme for both the film and story categories will be announced on the 4th of August with the submission period to be the 24th of August to the 19th of October. The winning films and stories should be announced on the 17th of November during the Machinima Expo.

The competition has received other sponsorship from Sony and Reallusion. Creator of the competition, Craig Harbison said:

"Animation programmes like Moviestorm, The Sims and iClone are taking over in the competition. One of the nice things about the prizes like Moviestorm is the winner is given a choice of a free user license or to receive credits to purchase more gaming assets and enhance their animation video skills."

Craig (Harb40) began experimenting with animation back in 2005 after playing a game called 'The Movies'. After following a website called The Movies Underground, he was introduced to other games animation tools such as Moviestorm. Today, Moviestorm is now one of his primary animation programmes. 

"Many contestants are career oriented, looking to get into either film production or animation at the professional level. The prizes of Moviestorm allow them to enhance their skills along with learning different aspects of film making including camera placement and movement, set design, storyboarding and more. They are able to move forward and be more hands on in their future endeavours."

This year, a short story writing category has been added to the competition which hopes to bring writers and screenwriters into the fold and introduce them to the world of animation. Some of them may join into the community and use Moviestorm to either make short videos to help sell their stories, lay out storyboards or even use some scenes for artists to illustrate their stories.

Further links

To find out more about the competition, visit http://www.harb40passioncompetition.com/ 
Visit the competition Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/211515672195252/.
You can also follow the competition on Twitter @Harb40PassComp

"GRAND PALMARÈS 2012" (2012 Palms of the Year) Movies FR Moviestorm Winners Announced

Moviestorm are pleased to announce the winners of the 2012 Palms of the Year awards via The Movies FR, (the French speaking community for The Movies, Moviestorm and Muvizu). 

Alutt, The Movies FR community admin, had this to say of the awards: 

"Once again, website THE MOVIES FR organised its annual celebration "Le Grand Palmarès 2012" (2012 Palms of the year). The winners of our seasonal contests of the year 2012, in each 10 categories (best scenery and costumes, direction, editing, soundtrack, script, character, dialogues, voice performance, movie and special prize of the public), were in competition for the Palms."

"After the winners were announced, they were rewarded with prizes (exclusive MODS for The Movies and Moviestorm, DVD's, theatre tickets, board games and, thanks to our partner Moviestorm, some MS points and a perpetual license.”

Winners of the awards are listed below:

Best Movie and Best Direction: Laviv42 with "La Colline a des Yeux 3" (using The Movies software) is awarded 12 000 MSP. http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/community/?u=laviv42

Best Scenery and Costumes: Michael Mayers with "From Hell" (using The Movies software) wins 1000MSP and donates these to Vincent C.  http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/community/?u=VincentC

Best Editing: Frederis with "No Man's Land I : la Première Fois" (The Movies software) is also awarded 1000 MSP. http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/community/?u=frederis

Best Soundtrack, Best Voice Performance and Special Public Prize goes to user Wabby with "Libre Arbitre" (using Moviestorm software) who wins 3000 MSP. http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/community/?u=wabby

Best Script and Best Character: Gilga with " Dernière Ligne" (The Movies software) and is awarded 2000 MSP. http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/community/?u=gilga

Best Dialogue: Code52 with "Huit petits Gags" (The Movies software) and is awarded 1000 MSP. http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/community/?u=code52

Further links

The Results Video Show is available here (in French only but directed with Moviestorm): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k2vwA5OT4KQVD63Skfl#.UVLeBlc6fxw

The Movies FR website: http://www.themovies.fr

Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/themoviesfr

Winner of Moviestorm BETT 2013 Future Products Survey Announced

Moviestorm are delighted to announce the winners of the BETT 2013 Future Products survey. All entrants were given a Moviestorm Education Annual licence, and the Department of Art & Design at the University of Minnesota Duluth were the winners of the prize draw, and recipients of annual Multiple Concurrent licences for the university, worth $3000! Thank you to all of you that submitted feedback to the survey.

We asked educators to tell us how to shape our future products to ensure that they deliver the ideal video creations tools to support teaching and learning across the curriculum.

Assistant Professor Joellyn Rock had this to say of the win:

"We are super excited to have Moviestorm available for creative projects on our campus. We have a growing Digital Art area within the Department of Art & Design at the University of Minnesota Duluth."

"As a digital art professor, I am always looking for ways to expand our student access to emerging technologies. I am also part of a team who are developing a new motion capture / video production VizLab studio on our campus."

"I am particularly interested in how emerging media is shaping the ways that stories can be told. My interest in machinima, avatars, and game engines led me to Moviestorm as a tool for creating digital narratives. I am especially excited by it’s cinematic tools, allowing the user to think like a filmmaker."

“I plan to use Moviestorm with students in several classes I teach. Students will create characters and interactive scenarios for digital narrative assignments. They may use the Moviestorm tools for previsualization on filmmaking projects. Some may generate animated sequences to remix with live action video. Others may explore customizing avatars and backgrounds for use in game prototyping. Students in our new Media Arts Club on campus may experiment with creative uses of Moviestorm in their collaborative projects in the Multimedia Hub."

“A few years ago, I created the Digital Art Workshop for Youth as a way for local middle-school students to be mentored by college students in our Digital Methods in Art Education class. Perhaps this year they will also have the chance to collaborate on animating characters using Moviestorm in our lab."

“The students and faculty at University of Minnesota Duluth thank you for making Moviestorm a new tool available for our use in diverse areas of creative project collaboration."

Joellyn's University of Minnesota Duluth links

Digital Filmmaking: Visual Narratives
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jrock2/viznar_spring.html

Interactive Media > B L O G
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jrock2/art3018/

Digital Art Workshop for Youth
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jrock2/workshop09/

Moviestorm launch on IGGY

Moviestorm are very pleased to announce our launch on IGGY, a new social network created by the University of Warwick designed to encourage gifted 13-18 year olds to realise their full potential. IGGY is a paid for service, but has committed to offering free memberships to disadvantaged students.  IGGY members can access a number of helpful educational resources, learn independently, and collaborate with other gifted young people across the globe.

“It is firmly in line with our aspirations to get Moviestorm into the hands of a creative and talented student user base at the critical 13 to 18 year old age range. We look forward to working with IGGY to engage their community via film-based experiences that support media studies and cross curricular learning” said Andrew Kennedy, CEO of Moviestorm.

“Moviestorm is a fast, fun and flexible tool and we are excited to see how our members will use it across all of our subject areas. It will encourage IGGY members to develop modern communication skills, express themselves in new ways, improve their media literacy – and simply enjoy making their own films” said Adrian Hall, Managing Director of IGGY.

A Moviestorm download is completely free for IGGY members. For more information about IGGY please click on the following link: https://www.iggy.net/moviestorm