WE RETURNED FROM INCHYDONEY BEACH with a bucket of sand and immediately set off trying to make it tell a story through an animation.

Caroline Leaf does it much better but it's good to know that storytellers of all ages can be empowered by the simple things in life. Like sand. There is a lot to be learned from Caroline Leaf's work and a lot of inspiration walking the streets of Annecy, France, during the annual animation festival there. We start the first session of the 2011/12 academic year with both thoughts in mind. And below the break sits a sample video used in the lead-off Digital Design lecture.

THE WINDMILL FARMER works for me on so many levels, from character design to its underlying message of growth and setback.

I also know Toon Boom software helped created the animation--software I've admired since first encountering the Canadian programmers behind the program during the 1998 Annecy Animation Festival. I'm marking this animation as a discussion point with the first year students in the Digital Design module at Limerick Institute of Technology. In a perfect world, at least one of the students will be able to describe the process behind the story, its production and the tools used to create the final short animation. Click on the image accompanying this post to see the YouTube clip by Joaquin Baldwin.

Windmills [mp4]

animation