Last week Steve made a special guest appearance at his daughter's third grade class in support of "Technology Day."
His goal was to wow them with Flash by leading the class through an actual game we're working on.
He showed them how the functional game looks with and without the final art to demonstrate the difference between appearance and functionality in development.
Afterwards, they spent some time looking at Miza.com to illustrate how it all comes together in a completed website.
Later that same day, Steve returned with his daughter for the afternoon presentations–this time it was the kids turn to show off what they've been cooking in the computer lab.
And now for the payoff - as Steve took a seat in a row of Macs, he says he couldn't help but notice all of the machines had Miza open in the browser.
The kids had been exploring the site and playing the games during the break.
I think it's safe to say Steve (and Miza) was a hit.
The kids have already started lobbying to have him back next year.
A laughingsquid tweet on the old Twitter yesterday lead to a fantastic stop action short, "Sorry I'm late", and reminded me of a Oren Lavie video that Lis sent a while back, and then Jim chipped in with another that looks like it translates to "Stop Motion With Wolf and Pig" that is truly the work of a madman.
Before CGI, the only way to do a proper monster movie, like the 1933 classic, "King Kong," was using scale model miniatures and sometimes not so miniature animatronics and/or guys in costumes, along with painstaking stop action photography to bring the world to life.
It's an art form that exists only for those with incredible vision, dedication and endless patience. As a kid, I remember shooting really cheap stop motion shorts with my dads Super 8 camera and the principles are the same as they are for any animation - move everything in your frame a little bit. Shoot a frame. Repeat. When you're done, string the frames together and watch it all come to life.
When done properly, it's really quite magical.
See for yourself–and be sure to check out the links behind the videos to see how they were made:
