This week was an introduction to the course. Me and the rest of the cohort met the lovely staff who run the Aardman Academy, the mentors for our weekly one-on-ones, (in disbelief we’re mentored by stop-motion veterans from Aardman!!), and last but not least our peers. When I was at Massey University my Animation Lecturer used to say that you’ll learn more from your peers than anyone else.

The first lecture kicked things off on Thursday 21st September 12:00am NZT. These are recorded for people in countries outside the UK like me, but it being the first I just had to see it live. Proceeding this lecture our cohort was provided an exclusive tutorial playlist. This detailed setting up your shooting space, using the 12 principles of animation in stop-motion, learning DragonFrame’s software/hardware and finally executing week one’s exercise … penny slides! Self explanatory mostly. Sliding a penny in stop-motion, applying everything covered in the tutorial playlist.

It’s good to start with the basics. Then it’s always good to come back to the basics. Eventually when you’ve really nailed them, keep practising the basics until they’re burnt into your being and all you dream when you sleep are nightmares over the world ending because you did not practise them. Basic is easy to overlook, but it’s the difference between complex being cohesive versus it being a mess.

Here’s my take on the penny slides. I’ll let the work speak for itself as I really need to return to practising: