Anime Super Stars!

Lights, camera, action!

Have you ever wanted to write a story or film a movie? Maybe even make an animation? Tell stories in different ways or even create a masterpiece?

Yes?

Well then, let me tell you how, and so…

Let the story begin…

It was over half way through third term and the bell just went to go inside from lunch. “Hey Matsusuke and Kiroto!” says Hirotsuga as he went inside the I.C.T room, “Get over here!” after most of the students settled down Ms. Tabushi the I.C.T teacher started to explained the new task that had to be completed.  “Ok kids, don’t forget what I’m about to say Ok? This will be your I.C.T project for this term. You will have to group up and produce a minimum 20 minute film. Groups have a maximum of 4 and the project is due in 3 weeks.” announced Ms. Tabushi.  “So it has to be done in 3 weeks?” asked a student,  “Yes!” answered most of the other students. “You may begin.” said Ms. Tabushi.

Matsusuke, Kiroto and Hirotsuga grouped up and started to plan. “So what are we going to do? Asked Kiroto, “let’s do an anime!” suggested Matsusuke, “did you know anime started during the late 20th century?” he continued, “Anime also started in japan!” “Shut it!” yelled Hirotsuga cutting Matsusuke of. “We are trying to plan so stop throwing in random facts! Anyways we only learnt about anime last week as if we would forget!” said Hirotsuga, “I forgot.” said Kiroto.

You see, Hirotsuga was a hot-tempered, serious and physical kind of person and so, he was normally the person who got the team to focus again if they drifted off.  “That’s it!” said Kiroto in excitement,  “What is it Kiroto?” said Matsusuke and Hirotsuga in harmony, “our story should be on a comedy adventure!” says Kiroto excitedly, “anime can be really intense when it comes to action and really funny when it comes to comedy! Put them together and you can have something like Johnny English!” Kiroto explained. Matsusuke and Hirotsuga agreed. “Also with comedy, you can really disproportion the character’s bodies and make it look really funny! I can just feel my inner artist coming out!” added Hirotsuga; “You’re horrible at drawing!” said Kiroto, “Shut up!” yelled Hirotsuga. “Anyways, let’s start to plan the story!” cheered Kiroto. And so, the group began to plan. Planning involved character design and development, background design and storyboarding.                                

Kiroto was a very creative and outgoing person. He liked thinking outside of the box and enjoyed drawing very much. Naturally he was going to be the designer for the story while Matsusuke and Hirotsuga did the storyboarding. Storyboarding involved planning the events that will occur during the story and ordering them. Matsusuke loved technicality and would often over complicate stuff so Hirotsuga had to keep him “down on earth”.

50 minutes later…

“Stop what you’re doing and listen! Next week I expect you to be filming or animating. You may continue this in you spare time and pack up because you’ll be dismissed in 5 minutes!” announced Ms. Tabushi. After the kids were dismissed Hirotsuga, Kiroto, and Matsusuke waited for each other at the school gates. They usually all walk home together every day. Today they were going to go to Kiroto’s place to continue their anime project. They added this to their weekly schedule so that every Wednesday they will go to Kiroto’s place to work on their anime project. Tetsuya Endo is the creator of “My neighbour Totoro” and Kiroto’s sister is Tetsuya’s apprentice. Because of that, Kiroto’s house is full of anime things.

When they arrived at Kiroto's place they hoped onto the computer and started to animate a scene. Kiroto loves anime just as much as his sister someone who creates anime. Whenever he gets any spare time he usually starts watching anime. His favourite is “Death note”. Kiroto also really enjoys I.C.T, ever since he was 7 he started to animate clips and animation has kind of become a hobby for Kiroto now but it ages for him to get the gist of it. Now he is amazing at computer animation. Animation is quite a difficult technique so they had to work really hard.

1 week later…

“Can’t wait till I.C.T!” said Kiroto excitedly,“me neither! Our computer animation so far really is really cool! I bet Ms. Tabushi will really be surprised!” said Hirotsuga, “It will be so cool when we finish!” added Matsusuke.They were all really excited.

Later that day…

“OMG I.C.T is next! I cannot wait!” said Kiroto with glee.It was going to be awesome! They all thought. Throughout lunch they were discussing their anime but just then,Ding, Ding! Went the bell and it was time to go to their next classes.“The I.C.T class is finally here!” said Kiroto.

During the I.C.T class the group managed to finish most of the animating but still had a bit to go. Much like a narrative an anime consists of an orientation then a complication and finally a resolution. The group is just up to the resolution which they will do at home.

After school at Kiroto’s place the group finished off the story. It was kind of hard to finish it off but they managed. Although they were really happy to have finished the animation they still had to edit and add finishing details.

The next week…

The group is 2 weeks into the project and are quite ahead of the rest but that does not mean they will relax one bit! In fact, all they can think about is the project! During I.C.T they did a lot of editing. Then again, editing a 25 minute film was never going to be a walk in the park! After all that animating it will really take time to fix all those little mistakes.

At Kiroto’s house they added all the finishing details. They finished their anime and were really proud of what they had achieved. But even though they all really enjoyed it, it was all up to Ms. Tabushi.

The final week…

Today during the I.C.T session the class shared their films with the rest the rest of the class and hand it in to Ms. Tabushi. Everybody loved Hirotsuga, Matsusuke and Kiroto’s anime Magical Monkey Mayhem!  It was a huge hit! They even showed it at the school assembly! Ms. Tabushi was very proud.

The end.