Did you know that if you go up to the fourth floor of the animation festival this year, you can find some animation workshops. And here’s some more good news. Kids’ admission is free! One of these workshops is a tutorial on how to use an animation program called Pimco. The kind-hearted souls who want to help sometimes can only speak Japanese, but I noticed that this drawback seems to motivate them even more.
Those who can speak English go out of their way to make sure that you can understand what the program is saying as well, by changing the language the program is working in. Once you have completed your animation clip, they will watch you play it. If it turned out pretty good, they might even ask if its alright if they post it on YouTube under your name/pen name!
Another room you can go to is “Kids Clips.” Kids Clips is a stop motion creation area. They have four methods to create stop motion set up. One table has stacks of pipe cleaners so that you can make characters and props with them. Another table has light desks and tracer paper set up so that you can draw a character, and then make them do things.
The third table is very similar to the pipe cleaners, except that you use clay instead (thus creating the nickname: claymation). The last table is more of a counter, and here they let you make and view flip books and phenakistoscope (spinning flip books).
They have two different camera stations set up, one for the claymation and one for the pipe cleaner creations and sketch stop motion, all of them set up by their business Managed IT Support team. After you have recorded your video you can view it on the small televisions connected to the cameras.
