Do you or your children like wooden trains? Or stop motion?

[Rubberduckies]

I'm trying not to be spammy - I've been a mumsnetter for a while, it was invaluable when I was TTCing and going through fertility tests. I did try to ask last week where to post this (asked in chat and site stuff) but didn't get a response....so I thought I'd go for it, and if I get deleted maybe MNHQ will tell me where I can put it and what I can/cannot do!

My husband and I have been making stop motion videos with a wooden train set (mix of BRIO, IKEA, Melissa and Doug, Thomas....) We started out making them for our nephew who likes trains but watches some incredibly irritating stuff on youtube, then shared with a few friends, and now we've stared a youtube channel.

We're trying to make good quality videos, with simple stories but no narration or voices (so children can add their own narration using their imaginations) and encourages children to get off youtube and play with their real toys by re-enacting what they see in the videos. We've also tried to make them mildly interesting for adults, because otherwise my SIL, MIL (and us) are driven nuts when its played 30 times on loop by said (slightly obsessive) nephew.

I thought other parents might want to see them, which is why I want to share it somewhere on Mumsnet, I just don't know where or how!

HERE is the link to the channel - I hope you enjoy it!

*STARTED a YouTube channel. Obviously. I previewed and everything!

Incredible! Love! My kids too old but I'll watch it - so relaxing !

I'll show these to our autistic son tomorrow, they might interest him - he likes very simple animation styles such as this.

What a fantastic idea! The videos are lovely, I will show them to DD as she adores her train set (which was mine twenty years ago)

Brilliant! DS loves his trains and he'll love your videos, I could do with a break from Thomas and Friends too!

Wow, they must have taken hours and hours! Fantastic, OP!

Oh gosh thank you for the lovely comments! @EggysMom actually I think that my nephew has Autism too (or at least very much 'on the spectrum' I know you're probably sick of people saying that to you about their children, but I'm actually a Learning Disabilities nurse, and his uncle does have Aspergers, so its pretty plausible. So we had him in mind for the videos when we made them. Lots of my colleagues have said that they work well for the adults we work with too which I hadn't considered (Now I've been on maternity leave for 3 months its like I completely forgot my old life!)

@DocusDiplo My Mum and Grandparents love them - not exactly our target audience, but who cares! Everyone can do with a bit of fun and relaxation in their lives!

@RushianDisney I LOVE that she has your old train set. Mine unfortunately was sold at a car boot sale at some point, and DH's was a joint family one so went to nephew....We bought a secondhand bundle on facebook for our DS (well, ourselves, he's 3 months and doesn't appreciate it AT ALL) We have had to borrow the odd thing from DN for the videos by sneaking it out when he's not looking. Then when he sees the videos he gets all excited "THAT'S LIKE MY TRAIN"

@Onlyahalfbottle Thank you! Yes DN was watching Thomas on loop. Now he watched TRAiN TOWN on loop, but at least maybe he can make me and DP YouTube millionaires now! He particularly likes the church bells, and greets us now with "DONG...........DONG..........DONG" which is pretty cute.

@fairydustandpixies Yes.....probably not a great use of our time, but it's fun! All this sleep when the baby sleeps nonsense. We're up in the spare room playing with our trainset! There are about 10 photos for every 1 second of video. Each scene takes around 15minutes to set up, and each photo is about 5 seconds apart (if we don't knock something, move the tripod or something else which ends in swearing and starting all over....) The editing takes quite a while too, but it is nice to have a joint project with DP. We often do different things, in the same room. It makes a change to be doing the same thing!

Love it! Just watched with my 2 ds and they loved it too

My 2 year old LOVES stuff like this and watches it on YouTube.
Thanks for the link

I love it and I had one little idea which might make your life easier.

You're filming with a static camera which means your first shot without the train gives you a mask. Then if you had a stepper motor set to pull a bit of nylon a discrete distance in a pulse, while triggering the camera you would have a consistent movement for frame rate and would end up doing less work.

You've then got the mask for removing any artefacts.

They are lovely - and having done some Lego stop mo with my son I know how much work you must have put in. The sound track is brilliant - little details like the clock striking as the train pulls in and the bird song.

@NewDirectionRequired Ah so glad they liked it! This is why I wanted to share it!

@MissMooMoo Thanks for showing it to them!

@IWouldPreferNotTo That is a brilliant idea! Might have to actually get photoshop for that though right? At the moment we are just using VegasPro for all the editing so have been a bit limited, but my BIL had it. We're learning all the time about stop motion, editing, YouTube etc as we go, we didn't even know how to use our DSLR before starting this and so our videos are getting better each time (I think anyway!) Thanks so much for commenting, I will look into a stepper motor and how to use masks.

Super cute videos!! Just showed my 2 year old daughter ❤️

@Rubberduckies

I wasn't thinking of PhotoShop at all.

As you haven't immediately dismissed the idea I'll try and explain in more detail what I was thinking.

Your DSLR can be externally triggered to take a photo. So a small stepper motor which can move a very precise distance could be controlled by a small device like an arduino, which would also trigger the camera. You could even program in a curve for the distance moved to simulate the train accelerating up to speed (yes I am a massive nerd). Now this might seem massively complex but if you end up monetising the channel spending a bit of money to massively reduce the time taken for a scene could be worth it.

Then for turning the photos into actual film I was thinking you'd use Blender as it makes it very easy to do the masking etc.

I like them too. Great from an educational viewpoint for NT children too. I can imagine using them in my KS1 literacy classes and getting the children to write a story based on the clip.

@BarbaraStrozzi Thanks so much! Doing the sound effects is probably my favourite part. Sooooo satisying to see the photos come together and actually make a story!

@Ainsl Thank you! Hope she enjoyed it!

As an aside, we have been taking suggestions/requests from the children who have watched it. So DN wanted "Points that switch" so we've put them in a couple of time. My friend's son wanted more trains, so the second video had almost every single train we own in it...! My niece likes dogs. Actually an adult from a Reddit sub wanted me to use the BRIO adventure tunnel. So that's going in the next video )hope to post by the end of the weekend). So feel free to ask your toddlers what they want to see. If I was spammy, I'd ask you to "LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, HIT THAT NOTIFICATION BELL AND LEEAVE YOUR SUGGEST IN THE COMMENTS DOWN BELOW" But I find that incredibly irritating on YouTube, so I'll just say it hear! (Obviously if you want to do all that, be my guest. DH wants to become a YouTube millionaire and give up his job as a primary teacher but we're 964 subscribers away from being able to apply for monitisation lol!)

Oh my goodness, I can spell honestly!
LEAVE your SUGGESTIONS
say it HERE.....

My 2 boys 5yo and 3yo love these and what a relief from that annoying American couple!

This is super cute I will show it to dc3 he will love it

@IWouldPreferNotTo Ok! Yes we already use a remote shutter button, because otherwise there's just too much movement. That's really useful and interesting, thank you! pootles off to google arduino and Blender

@MirrorrorriM Funnily enough DH was saying he might use them at school too for literacy. The children don't have to know that it's his channel!

Stayaway, that couldn't possibly be Izzy's Train Time could it?

DS is now immersed in the world of minecraft videos, but he started off with videos of Brio and he found them very inspiring. His focus was always more on engineering tracks rather than roleplaying. Funnily he's on a waiting list to investigate ASD too.

The videos are really sweet, reminds me of Shaun the Sheep with the music and sound.

Thank you, my train mad son will love this!

I’ll spread the word - these are super!

@Stayawayfromitsmouth So glad they liked them! Yes those sorts of videos are our inspiration....We can't be doing with them at all!

@Bigpaintinglittlepainting Thanks! I'd love to have his feedback once he's watched it!

@SudowoodoVoodoo Thank you! I love Shaun the Sheep, so very happy you think it has that vibe.

@ChittyChittyBoomBoom So glad to hear that, I'm glad I posted!

@Slugslasher Thanks so much, that would be great. Glad you liked them!