MAKE YOUR OWN MOVIE VIA ZIMMER TWINS!

Hello everyone,

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In this post, i will meet you with a web-based tool which is called ZimmerTwins. The project was created by Jason Krogh and an animator, Aaron Leighton.  By using the library of animation and story editor, children can make their own movie or episodes in one minute easily. Also, the website has an sub-section which is specially designed for schools by the collabobration of educators and animators. Children have a chance to create stories or episodes through various backrounds, props, characters and actions. They can also add their own texts or dialog into the scene.Let me introduce you the characters:

Eva, the cat 13 and Edgar

Eva:Edgar's older twin sister. She is the leader of the group. She is also mature, intelligent and talented in arts.

Edgar:Eva's younger twin brother. He is clumsy and unintelligent. He loves food, friends and the cat 13. He has another personality named "Super Action Boy!"

The Cat 13: 13 is the twin's cat. He can talk and do the the action's of human beings like playing a guitar or cooking etc.

I personally love the concept of charaters because students can learn better in the context that they expose gradually.That the characters does not change throughout the episodes makes learning easier for them. That's why it is used commonly all over the world maybe.

How is it used? Let's look at screenshots of my own step by step.

Firstly, users have two options.Choose one of them according to your purpose.

After signing up and clicking on "make a move" users can see various options such as various layers, timeline which is modified as you wish. Morever there are four clips that users can costumize their characters:Talk bubble clips, action clips, close-up clips where users can modify facial expressions of characters and also star-clips.

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The underlined green words can be modified according to the context and the user's preference.
After users finish the project, it is saved and watched on the website. Before saving, users can also take a look at the clip for revision.

IN THE CLASSROOM:

*Students can make their own animated videos by using their imagination without given any restrictions by the teacher.
*Teachers can use the website for an excellent ice-breaker in the beginning the lesson and build the other activities on it.
*Teachers can give short grammar instructions through using animated videos.
*Teachers can determine certain criterias about the characters' mood, features or the incidence that is going on and according to the instructions, students can create the context.

I think, Zimmer Twins is the cutest one among the tools so, do not hesitate it while using it. It can be hard to apply it into the traditional classrooms maybe but, we as creative pre-service teachers have to do our best to produce better circumstances. I will finish the post with a professional example.