Animatazz

Let's get creative

Did you ever think you would be able to make your own movie?

Animatazz brings the wide-eyed, wonderful world of animation and movie making into your home, offering you the thrill of being able to see your own ideas come to life through characters that you have created and animated, which you can then share with family and friends on YouTube or your mobile phone.

Our kit brings you on a journey from good old-fashioned plasticine modelling, through story telling and acting, right up to digital photography, computer technology and internet communication, all in a FUN, SOCIABLE and CHILD-FRIENDLY way. It is both educational and inspirational. It will bring out the movie maker in you, or just give you hours of fun for years to come.

When you watch cartoons or animated movies, maybe you ask yourself: “Hey, how do they do that?” or wonder: “Would I be able to do that?” Maybe you’ve even said to yourself: “Someday I’m going to make movies too.”

Well, congratulations! Because when you buy the Animatazz Kit you will have taken your first step towards answering those questions and making that dream come true.

We show you how you can turn the contents of your kit into characters for your very own animated movie. We guide you through designing and making the plasticine figures and sets. Then we will take you step-by-step through how to “animate” those figures, turning them into moving, talking and believable characters in a story, using the techniques known as stop-motion animation. These techniques are the very ones used by animators like Tim Burton and Aardman studios. Animatazz shows you how to use a digital camera and simple computer software to make your story come alive. And, finally, we will assist you in getting your movie seen by a worldwide audience over the internet on video sharing websites.

For now, you can start thinking up a story or a scene that you’d like to make into a short animation. It could be action-packed (more fun to look at), or a funny situation, or an interesting conversation between unusual characters (you’ll have fun making up voices and costumes), or maybe just a clever idea that you think will amuse your friends.

In no time at all you’ll be figuring out the details of your story, and designing your figures. Later you’ll be moving your characters around on your set and taking a photograph of each movement. Then you’ll be transferring those photographs (“stills”) onto a computer so that you make them all run properly together as a movie. Your first movie! How exciting!

Into the Dragon’s Den

In the spring of 2009, the inventor of Animatazz went looking for an investor for Animatazz. Michael put on his best suit of armour and went up against the dreaded dragons of RTE’s Dragon’s Den show to pitch his innovative toy and daring business plan. After hours of gruelling and at times rough battle, Michael emerged victorious from the tournament with Gavin Duffy’s investment as his prize! Thanks to Gavin, Animatazz has been able to go from “a box of yoghurt pots and pipe cleaners” to the sophisticated kit that Michael had in mind, including his magical Easy-Action Animation Figure (which he is proud to say has, like the rest of the kit, been manufactured in Ireland).

And here is what Gavin (far-from-a-dragon) Duffy has had to say about it…

Not your typical dragon

For many years I had been looking at the online world with some trepidation. Being a parent I was particularly concerned about its impact on children’s imaginations especially if they had too much of it.

Yet it had become a phenomenon not to be ignored. The amazing popularity of blogs, online gaming, online communities, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc. has led to a revolution in how we communicate with one another. Much of the new communication style is indirect, diverted through alter ego type characters or avatars rather than straight from the people themselves. These online personae allow people to dramatise themselves and express themselves free from impressions that the people they know day to day have of them.

When I came across Animatazz I saw immediately that Michael Connolly’s invention formed a wonderful bridge to that world from a more traditional world of family or friends sitting around a kitchen table playing games and making things. I could see that with Animatazz the medium through which people would communicate online could have its roots in old-fashioned play and learning.

From the arts and craft element of modelling the characters, through the cooperation involved in making up a story and shooting it, into the technological element of editing on the computer, and on to the sharing of the finished movies via digital media:

“Animatazz covers a lot of ground. CRAFT. CREATIVITY. LEARNING. STORY TELLING. THEATRE. DESIGN. LIGHTING. PHOTOGRAPHY. ACTING. TECHNOLOGY. And it does so in the most incredibly charming and simple way.”

Animatazz brings together the delights of imagination with the magic of technology; it joins the simplicity of arts & crafts with the glamour of movies; it encourages learning through play in what is being called edutainment; it gets people working together in the home or classroom but gives them something tangible to show off to the world through technology.

I thought it was brilliant and I hope you will too.

And here is what some of the other Dragons had to say:

“congratulations on a super logo, I love the branding, it looks as if it should be in every toy store in the world” Niall O’Farrell

“I like the fact that a child gets everything in a box, has to go and do something with the box, has to go and learn something either on a computer or on the camera and ends up with a product that he or she has created, …there is a beginning and an end to this which really impresses me.” Bobby Kerr