How to Make a Very Quick Animation

It's easy to make your own animation and post it on the Internet, burn a DVD, or generally unleash it on the world. You probably already have most of the tools you need, and others are only a free download away. In this exercise we'll shoot an animation, check it for motion, turn it into a video, and post it on the Internet. (I posted it to Google Video; posting it to YouTube works very much the same way.) Here's the finished (very short!) video:

I've broken this little project into pieces. Some parts of making an animation are universal:

is the same regardless of the computer you're using. The next steps - previewing the animation and then turning it into a movie file - are similar-but-different on PC and Mac.

The final step, uploading your animation to a video host, is pretty much the same on both PC and Mac.

Making animation is a lot of fun, and the whole digital thing - cameras, computers, the Web - makes it affordable, accessible, and just plain do-able with minimum fuss. It's yet another black hole for your time - but a very creative one. This project was just a taste. As we go deeper you'll be stimulated, excited, and hopefully inspired to do your own animation!