GoAnimate March Madness and Type a Video

GoAnimate introduced its new 'Type a Video' Quick Templates with their March Madness Competition themed around the game of Basketball. The criteria was simple. Make an animation using the March Madness template and make it relevant to the theme. The best judged entry would win.

I actually made four separate entries using four of the five available backdrops for the template. Each of my animations told a small part of the same story about the leagues top player, Larry Throwgood. Rather than embed four separate animations I've used Youtube's online video editor to compile all the animations into one short video. Each scene transition is the start of a new part of the story.

None of my entries won the competition (or even placed) but I wouldn't have like to be a judge on this one. Since the only real involvement a user has after they've chosen their set and characters is the script, that's really all the judges could judge. Click here to view the winning animation by Chaostoon.

Since the competition GoAnimate has expanded it's Type a Video, Quick Templates (which are a direct compeditive response to Xtranormal's online Movie Maker) to six different themes including; Talking Picz, Arrrrrrr! (Pirate theme), Lil' Petz World, Slices of Daily Life, Office Gossipers and Basketball World.

Here's a sample of Office Gossipers in a humorous animation I made below.

Whoopee Cushions for Third World Countries. by etourist

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

All of these animations I made with just a notion of an idea for the script then I started to add more to see where the idea went. This is really what the Type a Video Quick Templates are good for. They're the kind of thing where, if you have a little bit of time to spare, you can explore a script idea and end up with a fairly reasonably constructed video at the end. A really fun way to spend your time and to make something easy just because you were bored.

There are a few problems though that more experienced GoAnimators, used to making their animations from scratch, will find frustrating. Watch the following animation which I created using the Quick Template, Slice of Daily Life...

Obama Flies Air Force 1 by etourist

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Notice that, in this animation, the pilot never once looks at Obama as he's speaking. Obama isn't even holding the controls of the plane and neither character has much expression on their face. Also the camera framing is passable but it could be better.

You can't actually go in an edit an animation made with the Quick Templates so I've recreated all the characters and backgrounds from scratch (including the nice soft focus backgrounds that are only available in the Quick Template videos) and made the animation (below) how I might have made it if the templates allowed for a little more tinkering with character placement, camera framing and character expressions.

Obama Flies Air Force 1 - TET Edit by etourist

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

I think you'll agree that, although this also has its problems, it's a vast improvement on the Quick Template version. Having said that though, having too many settings on the quick templates would kind of defeat the purpose of making a really quick, fun animation.

The real limitation with the templates is that all the animations created by different users tend to look identical, using the same camera shots, characters, backgrounds etc.

Already I've found myself being disappointed when someone on GoAnimate asks me to watch their videos and I see a bunch of Quick Template animations. Which is a little unfair because the templates are all about writing an original script. A good script is a good script even if it's animated with a template.

Overall I think the templates are a good introduction for new GoAnimators but hopefully the templates limitations will encourage new members to move on to making their GoAnimations from scratch.

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