As part of our forthcoming Spotlights, Weaving Tales and Making Movies, we have a challenge for you. Weaving Tales is about storytelling, and the skills you need to create a good story and Making Movies is about the art of film making – whether it’s animation or a major Hollywood blockbuster.

The competition challenge: Make a short movie starring Tim & Moby using one of 3 scenarios.

To help you take you from script to screen we’ve written our own 3 step plan to help get you started: Tim & Moby’s guide to making movies .

• The winning entry in the 7-11 category will win a Flip Mino HD 3rd Generation camera and a collection of the Radio Times Top 10 family movies ever on DVD.
• The winning entry in the 12-16 category will win a Flip Mino HD 3rd Generation camera and a collection of the BFI’s Top 10 British films on DVD plus the book, play or screenplay.

Competition submission criteria:

• This competition is for children between 7-11 and 12-16.
• The winner will be chosen by the BrainPOP UK team. Editors’ decision is final.
• You must use one of the scenarios below as the starting point for your movie.
  
• The deadline is midnight 16th December 2010. Entries received after this point will not be considered.
• Finished movies must be under 3 mins and be all your own work.
• They must be in a digital format.
• The winners will be contacted by email in the new year.
• The winning entries will be showcased on this blog and shown at BETT 2011 on our stand.

You can read our full Terms and Conditions on our website.

Please download these three scenarios and pick JUST ONE to form the basis of your Tim & Moby script. Where you take it is up to you!

Script Option 1 – Adventure

“Tim and Moby stand in the Prime Minister’s secret underground office…“

Script Option 2 – Romance

“Tim stands alone in a shop browsing through a rack of t-shirts. Moby comes stomping into the shop accompanied by a stranger…“

Script Option 3 – Horror

“Tim and Moby are walking through a cold, dark forest…“

TOP TIP! Watch The Writing Process , Writing Dialogue & Filmmaking movies on BrainPOP UK to get advice from Tim & Moby.

You are welcome to submit your finished movie in any way you like, as long as it can be accessed online.

1. Live acting: You’re going to need a camcorder or phone with a camera function to record your movie, actors, a studio space and costumes. And find someone to shout “CUT!”
2. Green screen: You might also want to use chroma screen technology (here is a very useful and comprehensive step by step guide to using green screen in the classroom by Sheffield South Learning center).
3. Stop motion animation: You could use claymation like Wallace and Gromit, papercraft like “Star Wars in 2 minutes” or using physical objects like the amazing “Dot. The world’s smallest stop-motion animation“. Have a read of this wonderful guide to stop motion animation for beginners on Photojojo.
4. Audio play: If you don’t have access to a camera, you could just record your script as a podcast play with sound effects – a fun challenge on its own! Try Podium.
5. Digital animation: There are lots of amazing animation tools online. Try Anithings (animations), Zooburst (3D pop up ebooks), Xtranormal (you type and the characters talk) and Comic life (make a comic form your images) and many more. Or you may be a Flash guru.

You can submit your finished movie if it’s under 10MB using the form below. If it’s over 10MB or you host it online get in touch with info@brainpop.co.uk.

We can’t wait to see what you come up with. Good luck everyone.

Aaaand, ACTION!

We’re extremely proud to announce these movies (and their accompanying quizzes, don’t forget) will be added to BrainPOP UK for all free trials and subscribers.

No extra cost. No hidden charges. No funny business.

They span all the subjects in BrainPOP UK, both Primary and Secondary, and will automatically appear over the next 8 weeks, in batches, with new Maths and English movies already up. The list below is simply alphabetical, but in BrainPOP UK they will be categorised and tagged to curricula.

Example of some of our new English movies

If you dearly need one of these movies for a lesson and you can’t find it in BrainPOP UK (yet) then contact us and we’ll see if we can expedite it specially.

• Active Transport
• Adding and Subtracting Integers Advanced
• Adding and Subtracting Fractions Advanced
• Agatha Christie
• Aids
• Algae
• Allergies
• Anthrax
• Antonyms, Synonyms, and Homonyms
• Ants
• Appendix
• Arachnids
• Asexual Reproduction
• Associative Property (Order of Calculations)
• Asthma
• Atmosphere
• Autism
• Autumn Leaves
• Aztec Civilisation
• Balance
• Blood Pressure
• Body Chemistry
• Bonfire Night
• Bogies
• Braces
• Brain
• Brass Instruments
• Calculus
• Capitalization
• Carbon Cycle
• Carnivorous Plants
• Cats
• Cells
• Cellular respiration
• Choosing US presidential candidates
• Classification
• Clauses
• Cnidarians
• Cold War
• Compounds and Mixtures
• Computer Mouse
• Conditioning
• Conjunctions
• Conquistadors
• Decimals
• Diagramming Sentences
• Dictionary And Thesaurus
• Diffusion
• Distance, Speed, and Time
• Distributive Property
• Division
• Ecosystems
• Electric Circuits
• Electromagnetic Spectrum
• Emergency 999
• Equations with Variables
• Etymology
• Exoplanets
• Factoring
• Fall of the Roman Empire
• Fax Machine
• Foetal development
• Food Safety
• Fossils
• Frankenstein
• Frida Kahlo
• Galaxies
• Geologic Time
• Geometry
• Gills
• Graphs
• Ground Water
• Growth
• Homer
• Hormones
• Humans and The Environment
• Idioms and Cliches
• Imagination
• Immune System
• Improving Sentences
• Inca Civilisation
• Isotopes
• Joints
• Latitude and Longitude
• leap Year
• Lord of the Flies
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Maths Problems
• Maya Civilisation
• Measuring matter
• Metals
• Metamorphosis
• Migration
• Mineral Identification
• Monotremes
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Multiplication
• Multiplying and Dividing Fractions
• Nanotechnology
• Natural Disasters
• Nervous System
• Nutrition
• Organic Food
• Outer Solar System
• Passive Transport
• Petrol and oil
• Pirates
• Poetry
• Polyhedrons
• Power
• Prime Numbers
• Printers
• Property Changes
• Protists
• Protozoa
• Punctuation
• Queen Elizabeth 1
• Radioactivity
• Reading Skills
• Referencing Sources
• Respiratory System
• Rise of the Roman Empire
• Roald Dahl
• Roman Numerals
• Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes
• Rounding
• Scientific Method
• Seeding Plants
• Sentence Fragments
• September 11th
• Seven Wonders
• Six Kingdoms
• Skeleton
• Slope and Intercept
• Soil
• Solar Energy
• Stock and Shares
• Sumerians
• Sun Protection
• Symbiosis
• Terrorism
• The Order of Calculations
• The Troubles
• The Writing Process
• They’re, Their and There
• Time Zones
• Transformation
• Tsunami
• Types of Triangles
• Urinary System
• Using Proportions
• Volume of Cylinders
• Volume of Prisms
• Waste Management
• World War I
• World War II
• World War II Causes
• Writing In Sequence

PS: You can find a huge comprehensive list of all our movies that are live on our site on our “Movies list” page.