Flyer for the Detroit Mercy Animated Short Film Festival

Animation festival a HUGE success for the University of Detroit Mercy

 

It was a full house at the University of Detroit Mercy’s first Animated Short Film Festival. Held on December 16, the venue was packed as the six completed films were screened before a receptive audience. 
 
Created using Adobe Character Animator and puppets from ElectroPuppet, the night was an amazing success introducing a new group of talented filmmakers.

Taught by Associate Professor Jason Roche, from the Department of Communication Studies and Associate Professor Andrew Papa, from the Department of Theater. The course was funded in part by a FIRE grant from the Center of Excellence in Learning and Teaching. The new computer animation and voice acting course combined the technical and aesthetic elements of voice acting with the process and techniques of computer animation.

The students learnt all aspects of production. Writing, Voice Acting, Animating and Editing using the Adobe suite of products and puppets from the ElectroPuppet library.

 

After a number of weeks learning the tools, the students split into six groups to create their own animated short films.

The amazing thing with Adobe Character Animator is it allows you to create high quality animated performances quickly and without any prior animation experience. You can have a character matching your voice and moving in a matter of minutes. This allowed the students to focus on their storytelling and not get bogged down with technical limitations.

Puppets from ElectroPuppet come pre-built with all the gestures and expressions an animator requires. Each puppet also has the same controls. This means once an animator is familiar with operating one ElectroPuppet, they are going to be able operate any of them. They are perfect for teaching and those interested in learning animation without the hassles of creating and rigging a puppet themselves.

Congratulations to all the students and staff involved in the AMAZING event. We hope to share some of the student films with you here on the ElectroPuppet website soon!

 

Images and video above are from the University of Detroit Mercy facebook and YouTube pages.

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