BEHIND THE SCENES: The making of "They're Coming"

Following the plethora of questions on my Film Club's film They're Coming, I decided to make a short screencast of just how we ran the film club and did the special effects. 
This is a great resource if you are creating a film with a whole class, of any age range. Even the younger children in the club were able to be involved in the decision making every step of the way, while the older tamariki did more of the driving of finding sound effects, special effects and actually using the iMovie programme. 

This screencast includes: 

• Applying special effects
• Applying layers of sound effects 
• Using green/blue screen
• and making people 'disappear' 

If you have any other questions - please be sure to leave a comment. 

Also, if you want to see the film on the big screen again, it is being played during the 2016 Movies in Parks summer season. The film will be shown along with two others from the Manaiakalani Film Festival on Friday March 18th at Point England Reserve - a fantastic whānau evening. 

If you want more info on Storyboarding check my other blogposts. 

Coding to Learn...

... or should I say learning to code? 
Today my class and I had the opportunity to learn some coding skills, while practicing coding, as part of Computer Science Education Week. 

from OMG Tech arrived to set-up and assist us in our coding journey. Code.org has some simple coding modules which anyone can learn. They get progressively harder, beginning with simple instructions, before requiring learners to understand the loop process and "if.." statements in coding.

The code.org modules are based on three themes targeted to engage children (or other enthusiasts). Module themes include Minecraft; StarWars and the popular Disney theme Frozen. 

What's brilliant is that no experience is needed, and the teacher modules are just as accessible. I know what my summer PD is going to be, when I'm not at the beach that is! 

Learn more about Computer Science Education Week here. Awareness of computer coding is a brilliant skill in terms of problem solving, logic, mathematics and analytics. More so, just to appreciate the 'behind the scenes' required to make some of our favourite things work.