Could you be the next Ana DuVernay or Steven Spielberg?
A new, free app gives kids the tools to try their hands at directing. Toontastic 3D enables children to create their own animated movies.
"We call it our movie studio in a box," says Andy Russell, a product manager at Google who helped develop the app. " The goal is to empower kids with the types of tools that Hollywood directors have to tell any kind of story".
The story could take the form of a movie, a school report, or even a music video. Unlike other online tools that focus on the technical aspects of film making, Toontastic 3D puts the emphasis on storytelling.
In this app, users can choose from three story arcs: short stories, geared toward younger children; classic stories, or epic tales; and science reports, which take students through the steps of conducting a science experiment.
Student creators can choose from eight different setting in Toontastic 3D or can draw their own. Students then choose or create their characters and record dialogue for the characters to speak. All of this can be done in minutes, while using an editing program such as iMovie or Final Cut to create a two-minute video can take hours, says Russell. "We're trying to get the kids to create rough drafts, to rapidly iterate in their storytelling, and to be as playful and as improvisational as possible," says Russell. Once students finish their scenes, the app stitches them together, and the movies can be saved and shared.
One school librarian in Texas used the app to have students create book trailers. Then she puts a little QR code on the back of the book and attaches that to the video that the kid crated, so that the next student who comes along can scan the code and see the movie trailer that the previous kid created about that story.
The Toontastic 3D app is available for both Android and iOS devices.
(from an article in School Library Journal, Feb. 2017)
Try it and let me know!
~Miss Elena
A new, free app gives kids the tools to try their hands at directing. Toontastic 3D enables children to create their own animated movies.
"We call it our movie studio in a box," says Andy Russell, a product manager at Google who helped develop the app. " The goal is to empower kids with the types of tools that Hollywood directors have to tell any kind of story".
The story could take the form of a movie, a school report, or even a music video. Unlike other online tools that focus on the technical aspects of film making, Toontastic 3D puts the emphasis on storytelling.
In this app, users can choose from three story arcs: short stories, geared toward younger children; classic stories, or epic tales; and science reports, which take students through the steps of conducting a science experiment.
Student creators can choose from eight different setting in Toontastic 3D or can draw their own. Students then choose or create their characters and record dialogue for the characters to speak. All of this can be done in minutes, while using an editing program such as iMovie or Final Cut to create a two-minute video can take hours, says Russell. "We're trying to get the kids to create rough drafts, to rapidly iterate in their storytelling, and to be as playful and as improvisational as possible," says Russell. Once students finish their scenes, the app stitches them together, and the movies can be saved and shared.
One school librarian in Texas used the app to have students create book trailers. Then she puts a little QR code on the back of the book and attaches that to the video that the kid crated, so that the next student who comes along can scan the code and see the movie trailer that the previous kid created about that story.
The Toontastic 3D app is available for both Android and iOS devices.
(from an article in School Library Journal, Feb. 2017)
Try it and let me know!
~Miss Elena
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