Kids Can Take Their First Steps Toward Filmmaking With Toontastic

Images captured from Toontastic

Toontastic provides a simply stunning platform for kids to make movies.

Creativity is an element lacking in a lot of educational software, and Launchpad Toys have gone some way to addressing this issue with their new Toontastic app, a creative learning tool that helps children draw, animate, and share their imaginative concepts through cartoons. This app aids children in the creation of their own short films while at the same time teaching them about how to create story arcs and script writing. The real joy of Toontastic is that it offers children, and their parents, a wealth of creative options that other apps often lack.

Creating your own story with Toontastic employs five phases: story arc, setting, characters, animation and music. If this sounds too much for a young child, no need to worry. An instructional voice guides and prompts users through each step of the process. Young filmmakers can choose from an array of colorful scenes, from fairytale castles to outer space themes. There is even an option, albeit quite basic, for users to draw their own scenes. Then you can choose from a nice selection of traditional and whimsical characters, including princesses, dragons, spaceships and the like.

To animate the story, you just need to drag the characters around the scene while speaking into the iPad microphone to add narration, thus providing a plot. Characters can be scaled and rotated with multi-touch gestures to add context to the story arc. You can even add music to the scenes to create just the atmosphere you’re looking for by tapping on an emoticon and then choosing an appropriate song. Here is a typical space motif with some of the images you can choose from.

Once you’ve finished your scene, Toontastic will return you to the Story Arc to begin a new scene or complete your movie by tapping the Done button in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Here you can give your movie a title, name the director, and even share it online and view it through Toontube. However, you need to set up an account, which includes email verification and a number of time-consuming steps before your new masterpiece can reach a worldwide audience.

Toontastic provides a great platform for kids to exercise their creativity and take their first steps on the road to making more sophisticated movies. Though older children may find its options limited, its real attraction is its ease of use and the provision of a nice selection of characters and production options.

App Name	Toontastic	Developer	Launchpad
Price	Free	Latest Update	November 2, 2011
User Age	All ages	Category	Education
Size	176MB	OS	iOS 4.3 or later

By Colm Barker
Colm Barker is an editor at SMATOOS. He is interested in in online publishing, interesting applications and spreading ideas with smart media.