Dance of the Snowmen

Dance of the snowmen - a short animated film produced by a group of 7-13 year old children during a two day workshop at Dorchester Arts Centre, Dorset, UK in February 2009.

The workshop - run by Alastair Nisbet with support from actor and youth theatre organiser Bianca Judd, follows previous successful animations The Skeleton Dance and The Firebird.
youtube.com/watch?v=FpS312AOKx4
youtube.com/watch?v=Fo6aJMWs6Zk

The characters are drawn and filmed against a blue screen one frame at a time, with background and foregrounds added later.

To make their characters speak, the children use a technique of dialog animation developed by cartoon studios in the 1960s. The children film each other speaking and then use a series of mouth shapes to make their animated characters speak the same words.

They storyboard ideas, film animated sequences, record and add sound effects, and work with image and video editing software.

isbetmedia.co.uk