Animated Storytelling Online Summer Camp!

Start them young and ignite their passion!

Lori Yearwood

In our animated storytelling online summer camp, run through BCIT, we aim to hone in on the endless imagination and creativity of youth as we teach them animated storytelling. Together we will enter the exciting world of interactive digital storytelling by creating animated books and stop motion videos.

Having fun with Animated Storytelling
Setting Up for a Stop Motion Animation Shot

Students will learn to storyboard, create voiceovers, experiment with soundscaping, play with coding, and discover how to transform their creations in the editing suite.

Storyboarding your stop motion stories.
Storyboarding Skills in Action

In addition to stop motion storytelling, the coding students learn will be applied to creating a digital storybook, complete with moving characters and interactive features.

Here’s an example of an interactive digital story that can be made with the skills learned in our camp:

A peak at a little of the coding that was involved in creating the story above:

Coding animated stories.

In this online camp, campers will connect with each other and their instructors through interactive video sessions and a secure online camproom with discussion boards. Each day will include a morning and afternoon interactive video session, time to work on the day’s challenge with instructor guidance, and an exercise / relaxation session.

Required Materials

  • A computer
  • A smartphone or tablet that has a camera to take videos and photos OR a digital camera where files can be uploaded to the computer
  • Access to a high speed internet connection
  • Building blocks (such as, Lego)
  • Paper and pens

Course Dates and Registration

8-13 YrJul 27–31, 20209:00am to 2:00pmCamp H
13-17 YrAug 10–14, 202010:00am to 3:00pmCamp I

Register for some creative, summer fun below.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We are looking forward to having a lot of fun!

Finding Calm, Beauty and Peace in Oprah’s Podcast Series

I am a newbie to the world of podcasts, but my cup already runeth over with listening in. Before needing an even bigger boost of positivity and inspiration during these COVID-19 times, I had been listening to Oprah’s podcast series while driving as a means of inspiration for talking points during the yoga classes I teach. Now, I have the series playing as I cook, clean and hangout within my home. Entitled, Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations, each podcast features only one celebrity and conversations are raw as they talk about their own journeys of health and wellness with life lessons they have learned. I feel at this time, it is of utmost importance to flood our ears with information that can inspire positive change. The more we hear it, the more we will gravitate that way, instead of towards worry or fear.

I am still making my way through all of Oprah’s episodes and she continues to add new ones. There are some poignant take aways that will stick with me from what I have listened to so far.

In her podcast with Bishop T.D. Jakes, he teaches us that we think we are mostly only capable of what has been modeled for us. We are what we see, what we read, and what we hear.

mother dog with puppies

He tells a story of a beautiful mama dog who was injured in a car accident while pregnant. Her back legs became paralyzed, but absolutely no harm at all came to her puppies. The accident caused her to drag her legs behind her as she moved around. As the puppies grew and began to walk, they all dragged their legs behind them and only walked using their two front legs! They didn’t even know what they were capable of. What are you capable of that you haven’t even discovered yet?

Photo on left courtesy of Karel Van der Auwera via Unsplash.

standing under light

In Oprah’s Supersoul Conversation with Luptia Nyong’o, Lupita speaks on making space for abundance. We do such a good job at being sad, feeling negative, expecting rejection, preparing for “No’s” we will hear in our life, but we need to make space for light in our lives. Prepare for the “Yes’s” we will hear, for the positivity, and success.

A much needed listen at this time is the podcast with Eckhart Tolle, appropriately titled, Acceptance of Troubled Times. He explains that stress is something that arises when we want whatever is happening in that moment to not be happening. Stress arises in the gap between ‘what is’, and what our mind says ‘should be’. He feels we spend a great deal of time arguing with life and protesting our situation and this distracts the situation from changing. We must find acceptance in order to start achieving change.

Accept this moment as if you had chosen it.

Eckart Tolle

Eckhart encourages us to become friendly with the present moment. He feels that we add excess baggage to a situation by involving our own narrative. If we remove the dialogue we are telling ourselves of things like, “This is awful”, “This is ridiculous”, we can see a situation in its neutral state, in its true form.

Photo curtesy of Tim Goedhart via Unsplash

I will leave you with this quote from Joy Harjo, America’s Poet Laureate, whose podcast with Oprah reached me deeply, especially in these times where we rarely sit still with our thoughts and feeling, but rather distract with social media, the internet in general, and television.

You must be friends with silence to hear.

The songs of the guardians of silence are the most powerful –

They are the most rare.

Joy Harjo

Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations Podcast Series can be listened to through Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Naturally Ours Season 1 Film Festival Selections and Awards

Salt Spring Island

Erica mid interview with Cowichan Knowledge Keeper Hwiemtun on the set of Naturally Ours.

We have recently embarked on a new exciting adventure into the realm of digital film production. Many of you have followed along with us as we created and shared our first completed web series, Naturally Ours! For our first season of Naturally Ours, we chose Salt Spring Island, British Columbia to highlight the  Canadian Parks and the people they inspired. We worked together with Kelly Conlin of Nice Lady Productions to bring you gorgeous 4K footage with the goal of spreading beauty, love, peace, inspiration and hope around the world. You can watch the season in its entirety here on Stareable or the broadcast half-hour documentary version of Naturally Ours: Salt Spring Island on Fearless.

 

 

After the online success of our Season 1 release of Naturally Ours, we decided to test the waters at numerous digital film festivals. Our goal with this series is to continue on, featuring the beautiful parks and natural spaces we have all around the world and the people (and yes, other non-human creatures too) that live and work amongst them. Expanding our reach to film festivals has shown that storytelling which showcases the good and beauty that exists in our world is very well received! Here are the film festival selections and awards for Season 1 of Naturally Ours to date.

Woodengate International Film Festival

Woodengate film festival

Maramures County Romania (Photo courtesy of: Camilia TWU)

The Woodengate International Film Festival is based in Maramures County, Romania. Century old traditions are still a part of daily life here. In celebration of emerging talent in online storytelling in film, they feature live screenings of official selections chosen from submissions they receive from around the world. We are beyond excited to say that we were selected for their Documentary category and won the Best Documentary award!

Vancouver Web Fest

Vancouver Web Fest

Downtown Vancouver (photo courtesy of: Spencer Watson)

The Vancouver Web Fest is local to us. We were excited to bring the beauty of a park so close to all the residents here to the big screen! This festival is part conference, part festival and part showcase. Attendees enjoy workshops, keynote speakers, screenings and more. Being a web fest, they honour creators in digital storytelling. We are pleased to share that we were officially selected as nominees for Best Documentary Web Series, Best Pilot, Best Cinematography, and Best of BC! Best of all though was the reaction of fellow Vancouver Web Fest nominee, Lungelo Mdlalose. After seeing the screening of Episode 1 of Season 1 of Naturally Ours at the festival, Lungelo decided to spend his one free day in British Columbia, making the trip through the Salish Sea to experience the parks and people of Salt Spring Island first hand.  That Lungelo was inspired to take this action is high praise indeed from the gentleman that won Best International Series at Vancouver Web Fest for his series, Thesha. Congratulations Lungelo!

die Seriale Germany

die Seriale Germany

A View of Giessen (photo courtesy of: atxcowboy)

die Seriale takes place in Giessen Germany, and is the oldest festival in all of Germany to celebrate both emerging and accomplished independent artists of digital and web series production. Lectures, workshops and panel discussions are included. It only became an international festival in 2017, so we are quite honoured to have been selected by them as official nominees for Best Series and Best Documentary. This festival takes place soon, from June 8th through the 10th. Episode 4 of Season 1 of Naturally Ours will have it’s World Premiere on the big screen at the festival!

Sicily Web Fest

Sicily Web Fest

Gibellina, Sicily (Photo courtesy of: Luca Savetierre)

The Sicily Web Fest is part of the prestigious Scirocco Wine Fest in Gibellina, Sicily. The web fest prides itself on being a real cultural event with the goal of promoting cinematographic art through the web. It is a major international event. The aim of the wine fest is also to build bridges between cultures, making this a perfect environment to bring Naturally Ours into. It will be screening there between June 29th-30th as official selections in both the Web Series and Pilot categories!

 

Canadian Diversity Film Festival

Canadian Diversity Film Festival

Downtown Toronto (Photo courtesy of LinedPhoto )

It means a tremendous amount to us to be recognized for the Canadian Diversity Film Festival, as its platform is based on diversity being Canada’s lifeblood. It is for global filmmakers living in Canada with the goal of bringing diverse communities together through story and shared experiences. For us, that means being able to highlight Canada’s first nations, and the islanders of Salt Spring Island who fought to save the land and artistic healing lifestyle. The festival will be taking place at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto, Ont. June 29th-30th. The full version of Naturally Ours is an official selection in the Documentary category!

 

Stareable Fest

Stareable Film Fest

Lady Liberty and New York City (photo courtesy of Bicad Media)

Naturally ours will be making its American film festival debut this summer at Stareable Fest in Tribeca, New York City! Stareable itself is an innovative site for web creators to showcase their passion projects. In keeping with their spirit of supporting independent filmmakers, they are hosting a two day celebration that is a mix of judging nominated films, industry marketplace and creator convention.  We are pleased to say that Naturally Ours is an official selection for Best Documentary! The festival will be taking place July 20th-22nd.

 

Rolda Web Fest

Rolda Web Fest

Roldanillo, Columbia (Photo by: Claudio Vosti )

The Rolda Web Fest takes place in Roldanillo, Columbia and is one of only three in all of South America. This will be its second annual edition. This year they received over 1000 submissions from over 87 countries and have a celebrity jury. We are beyond excited to be finalists for best Documentary Web Series or Short Film! Rolda Web Fest takes place July 28-29th.

Copenhagen Web Fest

Copenhagen Web Fest

The Nyhavn (New Harbor in Copenhagen) Photo by: Nick Karvounis

The Copenhagen Web Fest will be full of activity! There will be live screenings, workshops, innovative projects, master classes and a pitch fest with international film makers. Taking place September 21st-23rd, it is Scandinavia’s first web film festival. Naturally Ours is an official nominee for Best Documentary! We love seeing that they have a Young Visionary category for talented youth.

 

Travel Film Fest

Travel Web Fest

Limassol, Cyprus (Photo by: Andreas Komodromos)

The Travel Film Fest is purely for films pertaining to travel, both modern and historical, scripted and documentary. They welcome enthusiasts and professionals alike. They value various modes of travel and also love films that highlight culture, lifestyle and the world around us. They are firm believers that the story within a film is far more important than the budget or acclaim of the creators. Naturally ours has been chosen as an official selection in the Travel Web Series category. The festival takes place in Limassol, Cyprus October 19th-21st.

 

Bilbao Seriesland Festival

Bilboa Seriesland

The Guggenheim Museum (photo by: Joe Lin)

The Bilboa Seriesland Festival is the first Basque Digital Series Festival! The festival serves as a point of union for the best independent content creators from around the world to come together. In addition to screenings they will also be running a Marketplace, which will be for one to one meetings, producers round tables, matchmaking, keynote speakers, case studies and workshops. Scrrenings will be shown at historical theatres around town and the awards will be given out during the the Los Otsoa Awards Gala in the Guggenheim Museum! All of this will be taking place October 24th-27th. We are thrilled to say that Naturally Ours has been nominated for Best Short Show Content!

 

We are greatly looking forward to continuing on our journey to see where we end up next!

Houseparty App ~ Video Chat With up to 8 People!

I have been disappointed over the recent years with how little my teens communicate with their friends in a manner that does not involve texting. Nobody actually calls each other any more. Just as our mothers and grandmothers before us, I began to accept the changing times. The tide has turned though with the entrance of a video chat App. Its name is Houseparty, and it’s more than welcome on our devices!

Houseparty App

The appeal of Houseparty is that you can video chat with up to 8 people at a time. Now my teens are having ‘face to face’ conversations. Sometimes they have a bunch of friends on there just doing homework together, other times they are all chatting to make a decision on a weekend outing, and quite frankly most of the time they are just checking in on each other with short quick hangouts. Of course, they added the App to my phone and created my own account, because they are always trying to keep their mama hip. The problem that arose for me though, is that when adding friends for me to ‘party’ with, absolutely no one in my contacts has this App. That, my friends, is why I am sharing this with you. We once again have an App taking the teenage world by storm that adults don’t know about!

Apps for Video Chatting

I love the subtle red solo cup.

I see this App being incredibly fun and useful for my various groups of friends from near and far, as well as for family visits with international relatives. With its ability to include up to 8 people at a time though, Houseparty is actually a strong business tool as well.

fun facts

Lori in the House!

As soon as you open the App you will be shown your previous activity and you are then greeted with an added bonus…a fun fact! Also, upon entering the App your friends will get a pop-up notification on their phone letting them know that you are there. “Lori’s in the house!” They can then choose to go join you.

Houseparty App

A Party of Three (blurry action screen shot!)

As friends or co-workers join you in the house, the screen will continue to split. This gives me a chuckle every time as it reminds me of the Brady Bunch opening! If you notice the red banner at the bottom, it says that the room has been locked. This function closes the chat and no one else will be notified or allowed to enter. You activate the locking feature by clicking on the 3 dots you see in the bottom left corner of the photo above. This is needed, as everyone in your Houseparty contacts will get notified every time you enter the App. I would suggest you create a separate account for business and personal contacts. It is possible to turn off notifications though in your settings.

Houseparty Feedback

If you ever have any trouble or would like to give feedback simply shake your phone and select a prompt.

That’s the main tour of the house! It’s very user friendly and simple to navigate. I hope it brings you some great ‘face to face’ interactions.

Stop Motion Storytelling

We, at Ahimsa Media, have so much respect for the patience and attention to detail required of stop motion storytelling! I recently had the opportunity to view an educational display of props and characters used by Laika Studios in some of their very popular feature films including, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Coraline, and their most recent release, Kubo and the Two Strings. With it taking approximately 5 years to complete an animated feature of this genre, you can imagine the journey involved, and the effort to keep the story fresh and engaging for those working on it.

Coraline props

Coraline’s house from the movie Coraline. This is the actual model used during production, as are all the others shared here.

 

Laika Studios stop motion

A scene from ParaNorman. Look closely at the details of all the tiny props. Each one is made by Laika team specialists. We were shown a video of a tiny lamp being made using real glass blowing techniques and very steady hands!

 

Kubo and the Two Strings

This is a working set from Kubo and the Two Strings, notice the lights which add authenticity and shadows. A stop motion film has more depth to it, because there actually is depth with the characters being in real constructed rooms.

Laika has mastered the blend of technology with the age old technique of stop motion by utilizing 3D printing to create replaceable character heads with expressions more realistic than has ever been done before. A main character, such as Norman may have a face made up of over 78 individual pieces, with thousands of those needed to produce different looks. The protagonist from Kubo for example, has 66,000 face pieces for a total of 48 million different possible facial expressions. You may be starting to see why it takes so long to complete storytelling on a project like this. Just the 3D printing alone takes years to complete, with it taking so many hours for each piece.

stop motion character faces

A few of the removable character facial pieces from Kubo and the Two Strings depicting different expressions.

24 facial expressions are needed per second of filming, with an equal number of photos! No video is ever taken, an entire movie is made up of over 5 thousand images alone. Laika does also masterfully blend CGI elements to make wires disappear or add rooftops to buildings that had to be open, plus some necessary special effect needs that come up.

stop motion

This boat from Kubo and the Two Strings has over 200,000 hand glued paper leaves on it. Not sure why the security guard is so sheepishly hiding behind it!

Knowing how long it takes to complete one of these storytelling projects has us wondering how many stories are in the works right now that we can look forward to in the next 5 years! Can’t wait to enjoy them with our enlightened knowledge of the craft.

Nike Training: A Workout App to Keep You Active on the Road

Busy professionals and traveling storytellers are often on the road, which can disrupt attempts to remain loyal to a workout regime. This has happened to me too many times! I will get into a good groove of working out and then leave to travel, abandoning my trips to the gym only to have to start all over when I return. Being active is extremely important, especially when you spend a lot of time sitting behind a computer. I recently discovered the Nike+ Training Club App (NTC), and have resolved my workout commitment issues!

There are always at least 30 minutes in each day of your travel schedule that you could squeeze in one of the workouts right in your hotel room, or at a nearby park you might find. There are workouts as short as 15 minutes though, so there really are no excuses for not getting one in! I actually really like the style of the workouts as well. Most of them will have you do a particular exercise for about a minute straight and then move on, rather than a series of reps. You can sync your iTunes music to the workout as well, which makes it so much more fun!

Nike workouts

Personalizing Your Experience

When you first use the App it will ask you a series of questions to help get you started. You can input how often you would like to workout and what you have access to. This includes whether or not you have any weights, or a yoga mat for example.

workout plan

Deciding on Your Focus

You have the option to set up a plan for yourself where you would be using the Nike+ Training App at home, as well as on your travels for a period of 4-6 weeks. I have actually done this and found it really useful because as a working mom, getting to the gym is often a challenge. Working out around the house also allows your kids to see you being active and sets a good example. (In my case, it provides entertainment as they love to laugh at my struggles to keep up!)

workout app

Individual Themed Workouts

You also have the option to just select a single workout to do. You can peruse hundreds of them and pick one that fits into the amount of time you have and an area of your body you would like to focus on, even if you would just like to stretch. No excuses remember?!

Nike App

A Glimpse Into the Breakdown of a Workout

In addition to the workouts, Nike offers community interaction, both digitally and in person. There is a feed within the App displaying current informative fitness blogs by Nike and another with featured hashtags to participate with. If you’d like to get out and meet new people, you can search up live classes led by Nike trainers taking place wherever you may be with the option to register for the class through the App.

NO EXCUSES!

Quizlet ~ A Handy Study Tool

I’m past the point in parenting where I need to search and find tools to help my kids with their studying. They find innovative ways to help themselves! When I saw my daughter on her phone, I’m pretty sure I said something to the effect of, “Hey Missy! Shouldn’t you be studying?!” To which she gave me the stink eye and replied, “I am!” She has been preparing for her tests using an App called Quizlet.

Within Quizlet, you can create your own flashcards and then use them in a variety of ways to practice. I think this could be a great tool for any of us taking professional development courses.

digital flashcards

You can create your own flashcards by entering the terms and definitions you are trying to study.

Once your flashcards are made you can study them in a variety of ways, but another great feature of this App is being able to search general topics and study off of flashcards and study sets other users have made.

Quizlet

If, for example, you search ‘Computers’, you will find a list of already made study cards to choose from.

 

ready made flashcards

Once you select a set of terms to learn you have the option to read through them all and learn the concepts. You can then practice in the variety of ways shown on the top tabs. These same methods are available to you within your own study sets that you create.

 

study tools

This is an example of one of the study games where you need to click on matching squares.

You can use the test mode as many times as you like until you feel confident. I regularly see my daughter running through terms on her phone in the backseat of the car on the way to school. You have the option to join the App as a teacher where you could create your own study sets for students of yours to use. They have even launched an interactive feature called Quizlet Live! This has been a great study tool in our house so I wanted to pass it along to you. No intentions of putting the cue card people out of business! If you have other go-to tools we’d love to hear about them as well.

iMovie Tutorial: How to Rotate a Video

On more than one occasion, I have been so excited to capture greatness on video, only to discover upon playback, that I have held my phone improperly and recorded an upside down or sideways video! This makes the video virtually useless for sharing ~ or so I thought, until figured out how to fix it. In case this has happened to any of you, or should it happen in your future, I thought I’d share an iMovie tutorial on how to rotate a video.

I have been able to do some basic editing to videos right on my phone within the iMovie App, however the option to crop or rotate does not exist that I have been able to find. Determined to fix my most recent upside down video, I uploaded it to my computer and imported it into iMovie there.

upside down video

As you can see, everyone on my subway ride is hanging from the ceiling. That would have been cool if this was an amusement park ride, but instead I had some editing to do. Here’s how I did it…

iMovie Tutorial

Once you have imported your video in iMovie and have started a new project with it, click on the clip you need to adjust and then from the window menu select Cropping, Ken Burns and Rotation.

editing in iMovie

Click on the arrow icon in the direction you want your clip to flip. Each click will rotate your clip a 1/4 turn. Sometimes your video is sideways and not all the way upside down so the 1/4 turn option is great.

break dance on the subway

Voila! Now it is only the talented subway dancer I captured who is upside down. Once your video is right side up, simply select ‘Done’ and return to editing or finish your video.

I hope you have found this iMovie tutorial to be a welcome relief for those pesky times you simply hold your phone the wrong way and have an upside down world to deal with! Here is my edited video of a breakdance on the subway in its entirety for you to enjoy.

Nuzzle: A Social News Reader

Most of the time when we are using social media to engage with family, friends and followers, we don’t really want news stories or articles in general mixed in there. There are other times however, that we would just like to see those stories without other interactions intermingled. We have discovered an App for that! Meet Nuzzle, the social news reader.

 

Nuzzle

 

Nuzzle provides a clean layout of news from your friends and people you follow on Facebook and Twitter. What you see then are blog posts and articles only, without any status updates. An ‘options’ tab provides you with the following viewing options :

  • News From Your Friends
  • News From Friends of Friends
  • News You May Have Missed
  • Recently Read Stories
  • Your Custom Feeds (lists you have made within Twitter)
  • Featured Feeds

You are also able to build a network within Nuzzle by finding and following friends within the App. If you select to receive it, Nuzzle will send you a daily digest to your email highlighting top stories! To make your own social sharing easier, Buffer, Pocket and Instapaper can be signed into on the App so you can share right from a story as you read it, or save it to be read later allowing you to enjoy the read without an internet connection.

This is a free App that offers a de-cluttered experience, which is always appreciated!

 

Video Optimization Services for Digital Video Success

Video is increasingly becoming a powerful and effective tool in marketing businesses online. A video can only have an effect on an audience though, if it is seen. There are many aspects that go into putting video content online, which is why we are now offering digital video optimization services.

If you properly optimize your videos to target your desired audience through search marketing, your business will have the competitive edge it needs to get your videos viewed and drive traffic back to your site and your services.

YouTube Art

An artistic interpretation of the various YouTube icons found among websites. Photo by: Webtreats

Why are so many companies creating video content? Because:

• It tells a business’ story in a visual way;

• It connects potential customers with the personalities and culture of the business; and

• Video gets preferential traction online by search engines, as Google owns YouTube, and now Facebook is giving video preferential treatment within it’s feed too.

Take Dinologue for example, one of our clients whom we have built a successful YouTube channel for. They wanted to tap into an adult dinosaur fan base and present them with material that would be relevant and scientific, yet engaging and entertaining. In creating an engaged community and storyworld for Dinologue, digital video played an important role to accompany Dinologue’s blog posts and social media.

dinosaur video

This is a screen shot of a Dinologue video in action with popular science writer, Brian Switek.

Beyond creating a video that will appeal to your target audience, there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes in ‘pre and post video production’. In order to gain traction to your video, reach your target audience and attract views to your video, we can help you with the following services:

  • Taking the time to look up the keyword phrases that your target customers are searching online;
  • Researching which of those keyword phrases you can be competitive with, in reaching your target customer;
  • Optimizing your video’s title, metadescription and tags to target the competitive keyword phrases that your preferred customer is searching for online;
  • Including a call to action and draw back to your company site in the video; and
  • Creating compelling video thumbnails that capture the attention of viewers, so that they click to watch them.

custom thumbnails

Creating customized video thumbnails gives your YouTube channel a uniform look and makes your video brand immediately recognizable when your videos appear under search terms.

Properly optimizing your video will help your desired customer find you online and will lead to increased traffic back to your website. Please contact us to discuss a strategy that is best for you. This is something we can help you with at any stage you may be in with your videos – whether you have never made a video before and need guidance on where to start or if you already have a catalogue of video that needs to be optimized for what your target audience is searching online, giving those videos fresh views.