Dr Amanda Gummer is one of the UK’s top child development experts with a mission to “help make the world a more playful place”. Founded in 2012, Dr Gummer’s Good Play Guide is, “an independent, expert organisation, dedicated to ensuring every child can develop the skills they need to thrive during a happy healthy childhood.”

The Good Play Guide provides fantastic resources for families and children: insightful parenting articles, trusted toy recommendations, and events such as Play at Home Fest, a virtual festival of play which took place during May and August 2020 to bring fun to families in lockdown. 

HUE recently visited The Good Play Guide headquarters – set in a magical indoor children’s centre – to show mums and their little ones our HUE Animation Studio kits and the HUE HD Pro camera, during a fun-filled, hands-on play session.

Working in groups of twos and threes, the children were given a selection of toys, LEGO®, modelling clay, paper cut-outs and backgrounds and shown the basics of stop motion animation with the HUE Animation software. Within minutes they were confidently making movie masterpieces with minimal assistance. The children’s animated movies featured talking fruit, toy car races, animated faces and an adventure on Mars. 

After the animation session, Dr Amanda Gummer sat down with the parents to hear their thoughts and feedback and to discuss the benefits HUE Animation Studio offers their children.

What the parents said:

“It was lovely that they were able to do something together. They do play together if you can get them off devices, but I find that there is so much choice with the digital platforms that they all want to do something different. Even with their friends, none of them want to play the same games so they’re always playing on their own a lot. And, so, this (HUE Animation Studio) was lovely, and all three of them, including my little one who is five, all played together.”

Mum #1

“What they loved about it was the freedom. They just used their imaginations. They’re perfectionists so when they did go wrong they could go back into it and delete it and they could speed it up and do it really fast and slow it down. It’s built to help all ages and all levels of imagination. It’s brilliant, it’s already on the wish list for Christmas.” 

Mum #2

“My eldest is ten and my youngest is five, so, actually, I came with the intention of the ten year old exploring and practising the animation. To begin with he was a little bit uneasy about what to do and how to use the equipment but within minutes he was engaged and confidently explaining to the five year old what to do. They were both very much concentrating, engaged, inquisitive with it, wanting to experiment and try different animations.”

Mum #3

Watch the full conversation with the moms in this candid YouTube video to find out more about the HUE Animation Studio kit and hear expert insights from Dr Amanda Gummer.

HUE Animation Studio is an all-in-one filmmaking starter kit for children aged 7-13. It includes everything a budding animator needs to create stop motion movies and time-lapse videos. 

Stop motion animation is the same filmmaking technique used to bring universally loved characters to life such as Gumby, Wallace and Gromit, Morph, Fantastic Mr Fox and Coraline. 

Stop motion might seem like a daunting, complicated activity but anyone can do it!

It is the perfect pastime for children of all ages and abilities to play and work together while creating stories, imaginary worlds and adventures. There is no denying how fun moviemaking is but, shh, don’t tell the kids, stop motion is a very educational activity too!

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