Pitch: A young girl is separated from her dog when her mother is arrested for child abuse.
Story by Sheena (WRTG 3090 – Fall 2013)
Tools: Pixelmator, PhotoPuppet (iPad app), GarageBand, iMovie
Behind the Scenes
To produce this movie, I began by experimenting with many different strategies. These included creating paper cut outs, scanning and photographing images, and many different apps. For this final product, I used an iPad app called “PhotoPuppet HD.” To create my characters, I searched the web for generic images, such as “animated kid” or “police officers.” After I found all the characters and backgrounds that I needed, I edited them in Pixelmator. Edits here included file-type transfers, colorization, and cropping.
Next, I uploaded my characters or “puppets” to PhotoPuppet. Within this app, I was able to choose a background and insert all of my own puppets. This is how my puppets moved around. I recorded a series of short clips (between 15 and 30 seconds) and exported them through my email. Then, I used my laptop to find the clips in my email and import them into iMovie.
In iMovie, I assembled the clips and put them together, using transitions and some video effects. For the sound, I used a mixture of my own voice recordings (recorded in GarageBand and imported into iMovie), iMovie sound effects, and GarageBand sound effects. And then I had a short animation!
Storyteller Bio
I’ve grown up in the mountains in Colorado, and simply love it. As a child, I lived with my mother and sister. Their relationship was rocky and they constantly butted heads. My mother was an aggressive German woman if she was upset – and my sister had a strong ability for upsetting her. My mother was arrested twice for child abuse before my sister and I moved out. During one of her arrests, my dog, Troy, really managed to escape. Unfortunately, I never saw him again.
In the mean time, I have gotten a new dog and fallen just as deeply in love with her! As well as losing my first dog, I have lost my mother and father between my childhood and now. I still have my sister, who lives in Lake Tahoe. Despite everything, family is very important to me and I have created my own family here in Colorado.