My Chickens
Monster was quite taken with the idea of a film rather than an animation for his latest project. We looked at the idea of clips of video or still pictures linked together with a presenter - Monster. We started the film with some live footage of the chickens right now, shooting it in smallish chunks to be put together, then looked at what stills and video clips from the past we wanted to include and then filmed the specific links to be used inbetween them.
Monster had quite a big role in the editing of this film, looking through previous footage and selecting which pics and video clips he wanted and then watching them closely to decide what introductions each clip would require before having me film him making them. He did much of the clicking and dragging to put them in the right order himself. There is loads of things we’ve already identified as wanting to improve in future productions such as lighting, continuity and perhaps scripts rather than winging it when the camera is rolling 
I think we would also have benefitted from a story board approach to the whole thing. It’s hard to ascertain which part of the process Monster enjoys most but he does have a fairly limted patience with the length that a really good quality production would take so we tend to go with a ‘get it over quickly and see some results’ approach for now rather than stretching it out and him losing interest.
I have been researching film and animation making workshops, none of which seem to be catering for his young age group, but there are certainly resources out there for a couple of years time which is reassuring. He has sent off a consent form to participate in a CBBC project - Me and My Movie, which takes place in a couple of weeks, so fingers crossed for a positive response to him getting involved with that and getting a real taste for the whole behind the scenes behind the camera stuff.
Without further ado, here’s My Chickens 
