Friday, August 21, 2015

iMotion- How To Make A Dancing Robot Video

This is it... my next post on making videos in the art class. 

Again, we used iMotion, but we didn't have time to use a Green Screen background. It was just getting to close to the end of the school year. It was already June when we made this. And fortunately, I was able to work with a pull out small group of kids.





The first step was to think of a theme for the video. We decided to use a dancing robot theme. Like the previous videos we made, we started with drawing up a story board to guide us on what we would be filming.

We  then discussed what we would make the robot out of. Everyone agreed to bring in old boxes, k-cups, and scraps that we could use. Teamwork, yea!





After we realized we had a lot of extra toilet roll-like cardboard pieces, we decided we could use them to make backup dancers for the robot. These kids are always thinking!

Then it was finally time to get working. We divided the work up- one student made the robot, one made the backup dancers, one made the disco ball and one made the background. One of the boys was really quite talented with choreography, so everyone agreed to get out of the way and let him do his magic with that aspect of the project.


So here it is- our dancing robot video!  

Now for the take-aways and there are a couple. Always trying, always learning!

Again, there were problems setting up the shot. Ugghhh! After the background was created, we discovered all the clouds and lightening bolts would not fit into the shot. They were too high up. We should have made them lower on the board. None of it shows in the video. The background is black in the video.

Next, we discovered the robot was too high up in the shot. We originally wanted him to dance on a stage. and the backup dancers would be on the floor. But we had to lower him onto the floor.  So we had to get rid of the stage from the shot.  And he was still too high up. Ughh! We then had to take the robot's feet (yogurt cups) off. These two changes made it easier to  shoot the dancing. We could now fit the robot into the shot.

Hoping you've enjoyed this series of posts about our video making. There's a lot to learn about the process and I hope our wins and mistakes make it easier for you.


You can read my previous posts on video making  here:













If you've tried making videos, why don't you leave a comment about what you've learned in the process. You can comment below.