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| Letter "E" Super-8 Time Exposure |
Super-8mm in the Classroom
When I was in college I found that single frame animation, both time-exposure animation of night life or the classic "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" style, allowed me the opportunity to make films even if I had no crew, no actors, no set, and no help!
When shooting time-exposure animation I would use the outside nightlights for my movie set. However, many times I found myself driving as far as 90 miles in one direction to find the kind of night time activity that I would want to film time-exposure style. Time-exposure tends to also be more of a winter season activity as well.
I could also shoot the classic stop animation technique involving a bendable character one could buy from the store. In essence one bendable character was all I needed to create a stop motion film. I would shoot primarily indoors and once again, film even when I could not find anyone to help me. I would "animate" the bendable character by slightly moving their arms and or legs, or head, in between each single frame picture that I would take with my super-8 camera.
Because stop motion filmmaking is very time-consuming, some people take two images of the set before the bendable is slightly repositioned. I feel double framing is fine as the image still looks animated when played back at regular speed.
An additional advantage making an animation film has over other forms of filmmaking is that each individual film frames tells part of the story. Each super-8 film cartridge contains approximately 3,500 to 3,600 frames, and as you can see, that is a LOT of story telling!
Along comes Bendaroos and now super-8 animation can help educate the beginning filmmaker without using an exhorbitant amount of film. If I had had bendaroos when I was in college I could have actually created my own miniature movie sets from scratch, along with my own unique characters.
Bendaroos allows the filmmaker to design everything on their set, including their very own characters.
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| Letter "X" Super-8 Time Exposure |
Creating your own Movie Sets and Characters with Bendaroos.
For the classroom teacher looking to teach their students about classic three dimensional single frame animation, Bendaroos can be used to give each student the same set of animation tools to create both a minature set and a movie character.
No excuses from grumbling students complaining that a classmate had a bigger budget or better arts and crafts to work with, every student gets a set of bendaroos, creates their own movie set and character, and then films it via super-8 single frame animation.
For film teachers that already offer single frame animation lectures, you probably have already grasped the boundless opportunities bendaroos can provide your students.
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