We are excited to announce that HUE will be exhibiting at the Manchester Animation Festival in the MAF Marketplace. The show takes place on Wednesday 12th November 2025 in Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK. 

Running between the 9-13th November 2025, Manchester Animation Festival is the UK’s biggest celebration of the animated art form and it is also an Oscar®-qualifying, BAFTA-recognised film festival. 

Taking place at HOME in Manchester, the festival unites the nation’s animation communities and welcomes international guests to share in the joy of all things animation. Working with leading organisations including Netflix, Disney, Apple, Sky, Aardman, Cartoon Saloon, Blue Zoo, Nickelodeon, the BBC and many more, the festival offers something for everyone, including animated short film competitions, feature screenings, retrospectives, workshops, networking events, panel discussions, masterclasses and talks from some of the industry’s leading voices. 

Come and find HUE in the MAF Marketplace where we’ll be showing off our HUE Animation Studio and HUE Animation Studio Pro kits, together with HUE Clay, the colourful clay that’s perfect for bringing your stop motion creations to life. 

We’ll have free samples to give away (while they last!) plus chances to win stop motion goodies in festival giveaways such as our clay creation challenge. Get creative, make your own clay character and share it on social media with the hashtag #MAFHUE25 for the chance to bag a bundle of HUE prizes!   

This year, HUE is not only excited to be part of the MAF Marketplace, we are also the proud sponsors of the Stop Motion category of the Young Animator of the Year UK (YAY UK) Award!

The YAY UK Awards is the nation’s largest animation competition for aspiring creatives aged 11–22. Open to entrants from across the UK, the contest showcases short films under three minutes in length in 2D, 3D and stop motion.

Submissions closed on 1st September 2025, and the winners will be revealed at the Manchester Animation Festival on the 9th November 2025, with prizes including exclusive studio tours at world-renowned companies such as Aardman.

Feeling social? Keep up to date with everything HUE Animation (@HUEanimation), MAF (@mcranimation) and YAY UK (@younganimatorUK) over on Instagram.

We can’t wait to see you all at the festival! 

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HUE is this year’s sponsor of the stop motion category of the Young Animator of the Year Awards – the biggest animation competition for young creatives in the UK!

The competition is now open for film submissions and entries must be submitted online by Monday 1st September 2025, so it’s the perfect creative summer holiday project.

The contest is free to enter and a great chance for students to showcase their creative skills. 

Students from Year 7 to Year 11 can share their work and be in with a chance to have their film screened at the Manchester Animation Festival, which is the biggest animation festival in the UK.

There are also top prizes up for grabs including a tour of Aardman (the world-famous studio behind series like Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep!)

See the invitation below to enter. If you’re a teacher, please feel free to distribute this invite as part of an end of term communication to your students and parents; one of your students could be an award winner!

Fancy having a go at animation over the summer holidays?
Young Animator of the Year are currently looking for film submissions! 
It’s open to all 11-22 year olds across the UK. It’s free to enter and your film can be as short and snappy as you like.
Plus there are top prizes up for grabs including a tour of Aardman (the studio behind Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep!)
Sounds like the perfect summer holidays creative project? 
Time to get doodling, sketching, modelling and making!
Find out more and submit your film by Monday 1st September 2025.

The shortlisted films will be published on the YAY website on Wednesday 1st October 2025, with the winners announced (alongside a screening of their film) at the Manchester Animation Festival this November. If you’re heading to the festival, stop by the MAF Marketplace to say hello to HUE where we will have a table displaying our animation kits including HUE Animation Studio, HUE Clay and the soon-to-be-released HUE Animation Toolbox (spoiler warning!)

Take a look at the YAY website to find out more, watch past winning films and browse some handy resources. We know there is amazing young talent out there so we’d really appreciate it if you could help us spread the word.

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The Brigshaw Learning Partnership is a Multi-Academy Trust consisting of one Secondary school and six Primary schools, with a highly successful Initial Teacher Training (ITT) arm which regularly attracts ambitious young teachers to its popular course. 

HUE recently reached out to take an in-depth look at how the HUE HD Pro camera is being used in this thriving Secondary school. We were thrilled when Chris Kilby (Assistant Head – Teaching & Learning) at Brigshaw High School agreed to take part in the case study, and blown away by the video which shows the HUE HD Pro visualiser hard at work right across the curriculum in Maths, English, Science, DT and Art. 

HUE cameras help achieve Brigshaw’s learning objectives by enabling teachers to:

• Show the clear modelling of steps before independent practice.
• Show the clear application of success criteria during live marking.
• Narrate their process – making the implicit, explicit to students.

“We originally acquired some HUE cameras when the pandemic hit, having seen them previously at the Bett Show. We now have one in every classroom and they have become a key tool to drive up thought and participation ratio during teachers’ modelling and feedback.

Recent CPD has centered on “show call” and “name the steps” modelling and the use of visualisers at Brigshaw is increasing all the time. Students are introduced to this method early on in our feeder Primary schools, and so are used to working with a visualiser in what we call our cradle to career curriculum.”  said Chris.

We asked Adam Welch, Director of Digital Services, for his perspective on the implementation of the HUE HD Pro cameras which the trust purchased more than 5 years ago. 

“Cost is always really important for education but here at Brigshaw, we talk about ‘best value’ and having the three year warranty is really helpful for our financial planning. The teachers need to be able to rely on the technology and know it’s going to work first time, every time. We’re very rarely called into a classroom because of a technical issue.

Making sure we could deploy the software across our network was essential so that every classroom was set up in the same way. We now have 125 cameras in total across the trust and I have already recommended the HUE HD Pro visualiser to other schools’.’

‘’When I’m modelling on the board I can focus on a particular part of the text and show good strong practice but I can also show the weaknesses of a particular piece of work and how to improve the answer. It’s also an excellent tool for showing the reality of pressure within an exam.’’

‘’Using the visualiser is really valuable because the kids get to see exactly what’s happening. I can question them where they’re sitting and get them really thinking. It makes practicals and demos so much more effective. It saves me so much time because I can do it in lesson rather than spending lots of time preparing in advance. 

I can draw an image whilst I’m talking rather than just showing them an image on the board. They can hear my thoughts and I can give feedback straight away, take questions, change things and differentiate in the way that I need – that’s what’s really valuable with modelling.”

‘’I use my visualiser every single lesson of every single day – it’s always in my planning.  If a student is stuck on a question they can email me and I find it much easier to model the answer in a video which shows the method and then send it to them via email. Calculator skills are so important with the new GCSE. That has to be modelled using the HUE camera on the board, it cannot be done via a Powerpoint or by writing on the board.”

Chris Kilby continued:

‘’Teachers love the HUE HD Pro’s compact size as well as their ability to pre-record modelling for multiple classes. The students have also responded really well and love to watch the teacher model a task or, with their permission, see theirs or other students’ work up on the board for improvement. By using live marking regularly, we’re building a culture of normalising error as a natural part of learning. It’ s the most efficient method of instruction that I’ve come across.’’ 

“Using the camera, I can show the students how to apply or use any art material and have me talk through it at the same time, step by step. They can then take it into their own work and try it out and experiment in whichever way they choose as they’ve got a baseline from my demonstration. When I qualify, I will definitely use the HUE HD Pro as part of my teaching toolkit.”

‘’I find it really useful for textiles because you’re showing close-up skills – you can focus on the point of the needle and the thread, allowing pupils to see really easily. Also when I’m drawing I like to do ‘track and do’ which is where I’ll be demonstrating a drawing technique, for example, and then pupils will draw along with me. It keeps students engaged and focused on their learning rather than having to move to a demonstration table.“

Last but not least is a Brigshaw pupil.  

‘’I could see it much, much easier than when going round the actual practical because when you’re all together people push each other and you can’t really see. And with the HUE camera it makes it much easier to see. I’ve seen it used in quite a few ways such as in biology we do algae practicals where you can see the photosynthesis but it’s just really good in all lessons.’’ 

Chis Kilby: “Students come to lessons knowing they are able to learn from an expert; the next step in our journey is to get them thinking even harder whilst the teacher models, using techniques such as ‘cold call’. “You’ve seen it modelled, now it’s time to contribute to the process at the front of the classroom before you apply it to your own independent practice.” Through prioritising adaptive teaching, enhanced by our suite of visualisers, we can provide everyone with a scaffold to learn from.’’

We would like to express our thanks to Chris Kilby, Adam Welch, Maria McDermott, Chloe Ledger, Matthew Bradbury, Lee Verity, Victoria Stenholm and the students for taking part in this video case study.

For more information about the HUE HD Pro visualiser and our offers for schools, please visit the HUE website.

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We have some very exciting news to share with our customers and followers today! We are thrilled to announce that HUE is sponsoring the Stop Motion category of the 2025 Young Animator of the Year UK (YAY UK) competition

At HUE, we’re passionate about sparking creativity in young minds through HUE Animation Studio and HUE Clay. That’s why we’re so excited to support the YAY Awards, a fantastic celebration of the rising stars of animation and the power of imaginative storytelling.

YAY UK is the biggest animation competition for young movie makers living in the UK, offering a platform to share their work, get noticed by industry pros and have their films screened at the prestigious Manchester Animation Festival (MAF)! 

Co-created by Tom Box, co-founder of Blue Zoo Animation Studio, the initiative is a collaboration between ACCESS:VFX and MAF that seeks to “discover, support, and celebrate the brightest animation stars aged 11 to 22”, creating animated films in 2D, 3D and with stop motion animation. 

Films entered into the competition will be judged by top talent from across the UK animation industry including directors, producers, animators, and creatives from the likes of Aardman and Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). The winners will be revealed at the Manchester Animation Festival on 9th November 2025, where the nominated animators will have the opportunity to meet some of the judges.

This year’s theme for the animation is UNEXPECTED. Animators are welcome to use this word as inspiration but incorporating the theme is not mandatory, and submissions will not be judged based on how closely they relate to it.

Entries will will be judged using the following scoring criteria:

• Quality of the animation skills.
• Clarity of the storytelling.
• Quality of the design.
• Quality of the overall film.

The competition opened for entries on 12th May 2025, and full details on how to get involved can be found at younganimator.uk. 

Key YAY UK dates for your diary:

• 12th May 2025: YAY UK competition opens for entries.
• 1st Sep 2025: Submission window closes.
• 1st Oct 2025: Shortlisted films and prizes announced on younganimator.uk. 
• 9th Nov 2025: Winners announced at MAF.

If you know any budding animation superstars this truly is their time to shine, so share the word far and wide with your fellow teachers, parents and friends today! 

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Bett UK is celebrating four decades of educational excellence this year and the show is going to be bigger and better than ever. 

Come and see us at Stand SM60 near the Teaching & Learning theater, to see how our award-winning HUE Animation Studio and HUE HD Pro document cameras celebrate creativity by bringing any lesson to life. Teach topics like climate change or maths with stop motion animation, magnify tiny wonders or record lessons for CPD – all designed to encourage engagement in the classroom.

Be the first to glimpse top secret product releases and get show-only offers! #HUEcameras

Our large stand will be unmissable with a dinosaur theme so look out for the HUE logo, a diplodocus, and a flying boy! We’ll be showcasing both our visualiser and stop motion animation products and will be able to share the news of new products coming!  

Bett Show 2025 Awards

We are eagerly awaiting the Bett 2025 Awards winners announcement on the evening of the 22nd January. The HUE HD Pro camera is a finalist in the International Digital Education Resource (non-UK curriculum) category. Wish us luck! 

5 great Dyscalculia manipulatives to use with your HUE HD Pro

On Friday 24th January, we will be joined by Cat Eadle from the Dyscalculia Network. Her talks will be held at 11.30 am and 13.00 pm with a lucky dip at the end of each session. The prize is Book 1 or 2 in the series Succeed with Dyscalculia. Don’t worry if you don’t win; every participant will walk away with a special show discount for both the HUE HD Pro camera and Cat’s books. You can’t lose! 

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At the stand you will be able to:

• Talk to HUE staff about all HUE products
• Watch live visualiser and animation demonstrations
• Check out our brand new shockproof case with USB Type-C adapter
• Enter our lucky dip competition to win a free HUE product!

Find out more, subscribe to our blog, download resources, contact us or follow us on social media.

Are you going to the Schools & Academies Show (SAAS) at the NEC, Birmingham, UK on 22nd November 2023? If you’re visiting, come and say hi to us on Stand H18 to discover our award-winning range of flexible cameras and easy-to-use software designed by teachers, for teachers. 

For one day only, you will have the opportunity to get up close and personal with the HUE HD Pro camera and HUE Animation Studio kit and take advantage of our exclusive Schools and Academies Show offers and giveaways.

If you’re going to one of the theatre sessions, take a look under your seat for a mystery golden envelope from HUE! You just might be a winner of our prize worth over £50!

Add stand H18 to your SAAS agenda as we will be hosting STEM and stop motion animation workshops throughout the day. These will be run by our in-house professional animator, Ruth Barrett.

If you’re unable to come to SAAS but would like to speak to us, you can do so at any time via our contact form or in person at another show near you.

More information

Register for free to confirm your place at the Schools & Academies Show and join us to learn how #HUEcameras can support your school. This exciting event will bring thousands of school leaders together to “connect, spark new ideas and discuss the current and future challenges faced by the education community”.

Visit our Schools page for special discounts and offers available for individual teachers, tutors, schools, districts, MATs and parent teacher associations (PTAs). 

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National Children’s Gardening Week is a UK-wide initiative that was set up with the aim of turning tiny fingers green, and to celebrate the fun of growing flowers and food with the younger generations.

Founded in 2015 by BBC Radio Sheffield‘s garden expert, Neil Grant, National Children’s Gardening Week is “an annual festival of fun that’s embraced in homes, schools, and community groups across the country, and supports the amazing Greenfingers charity”. 

Falling on May 27th – June 4th this year (2023), families and schools can get involved with an abundance of activities, resources, competitions and events provided on the National Children’s Gardening Week website.

The initiative recognizes that “children love growing plants and love being involved in the garden but they’re often impatient, wanting to see instant results”. 

This seed of an idea germinated in the imaginations of the HUE team, who thought about how #HUEcameras can be used to educate little ones and reveal the secret world of plants through video and time-lapse image capture. 

All of the time-lapse ideas in this article can be created using the HUE Animation Studio kit, or a HUE HD Pro camera together with animation software (or the HUE Intuition software as described in our guide). Links to detailed instructions and FAQs can be found at the end of the article. 

Capture a ‘pea-lapse‘

Who hasn’t planted peas or beans in a jar in the classroom? With time-lapse photography, this popular preschool project can become a much more fertile learning experience. In this pea-lapse video we captured the time-lapse footage over a span of three hours at a rate of one frame per minute using a HUE HD Pro camera and HUE Intuition software.

Watch plants ‘dancing‘

Plants such as calatheas and rattlesnake plants really love to boogie. Over the course of the day, the leaves of these so-called ‘Prayer Plants’ move constantly, but most notably in the evening, when the leaves rise straight upwards into a praying hands position.   

In this prayer plant time-lapse video the footage was captured over a span of eight hours from 4pm to midnight, at a rate of one frame per minute.

Time-lapse garden makeover

Gather your family, friends or classmates and organise a time-lapse garden makeover. This project idea works really well if you plan to make a significant change to the plot over the day, either planting up a bare patch or taking battle with a heavily overgrown garden.        

Make room for mushrooms

Long time readers of the HUE blog might remember the time-lapse mushroom project we created in collaboration with fun fungi company Back to the Roots. Watch the Amazing Pink Oyster Mushroom time-lapse video and read the accompanying article to find step-by-step instructions for setting up and capturing a time-lapse project with the HUE HD Pro camera. 

Explore capillary action in flowers with @Stem_with_Stephanie

STEM advocate @Stem_with_Stephanie shared this fantastic floral science project with us which explores capillary action in plants using some blue food coloring, a few flowers and a HUE camera.

Capture a cool cucumber moment on camera

National treasure David Attenborough may be best known for showing us the hidden behaviors of animals but he’s just as interested in plants and their clever ways of competing for space to regenerate. Watch his reaction to the amazing Ecballium squirting cucumber plant. We think you’ll have a chuckle too! 

If you are lucky enough to own one of these cool cucumber plants, why not use your HUE camera and software to capture a video of this exciting, exploding seed spreading strategy?

For more National Children’s Gardening Week inspiration, follow @nationalchildrensgardeningweek on Facebook and visit childrensgardeningweek.co.uk.

For more information about how to create your own time-lapse projects with HUE products, please visit our detailed articles and FAQ pages: 

• Time-lapse with HUE Animation software
• Time-lapse with Stop Motion Studio software
• Time-lapse with Back to the Roots and HUE (including instructions for creating a time-lapse video with HUE Intuition)

Find out more, subscribe to our blog, download resources, contact us or follow us on social media.

Press Play was founded by Lara in 2016. They offer a range of after-school clubs, holiday workshops, special events and birthday parties where they teach children the joys of animation and creativity in film. Watch this video created at a Press Play workshop and look out for their events throughout East and West Sussex.

The power of children’s imaginations

I have been using HUE HD cameras at some of my animation workshops for a few years now. Children love them! Since lockdown hit us in March 2020, these workshops have largely been on hold. Instead, I’ve been working on some other animations including a film for Brighton and Hove Libraries, funded by Arts Council England.

The idea behind this animation was to help the library engage more primary schools, as it had seen a scary 95% drop in these schools accessing library services since Covid-19. We were tasked with creating a short animation, to send to schools as part of some virtual library tours about accessing the library online and its range of services.

We decided it would be fun if children were actually involved in creating the characters for the animation. This meant running a competition across Brighton and Hove to find the animation’s main characters. We were amazed by the volume of entries and by the power of childrens’ imaginations, drawing abilities and the effort they all made to enter!

We were also over the moon when HUE kindly agreed to provide prizes to our winner and 2 runners up, including a HUE Animation Studio Kit for the winner, and runner up prizes of HUE Animation software and the HUE Book of Animation.

Watch the animation featuring the children’s illustrations below.

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She qualified as a teacher with a PGCE from the University of Cambridge and taught at Queen’s College Preparatory School, London. She has 15 years of teaching experience with children from age 4 to 18 and now focusses on online tutoring for students all over the world. As a UK qualified teacher, she primarily teaches English, Mathematics, Science, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning. Many students are at International Schools or British Schools and seeking to gain entry to prestigious UK schools at either 7+, 11+ or 13+. Entrance examinations are highly competitive and places limited so the best preparation is essential for gaining entry to first choice schools.

As a parent herself to four young children she understands the pressures of trying to help your children succeed and fulfil their potential. Juliet also works with home-schooled children from all over the world to help them ensure that they are following a broad and balanced curriculum.

The amazing thing about online tuition is that children respond to it incredibly well. Parents may be sceptical at first and think that in person tuition is better but once they see the technology and interaction they are soon converted. They also appreciate not having to travel to the tutor or wait while the lesson is on. All that is needed by the student is a tablet or laptop. Many students use iPads as with these they can annotate the screen. Both student and teacher can share the same screen and annotate it at the same time.

Here, Juliet describes how online tutoring works and the benefits of using the HUE HD Pro:

“I usually use Zoom, a free online programme, which has excellent stability and call quality. Both student and teacher can see and hear each other through this live video call. It is possible to share Power Point presentations, websites, videos, educational games and other resources. There are some resources, however, that cannot be viewed online. For these I use the HUE HD Pro document camera. This is an amazing piece of technology that allows any resource that I have to be shared with the student wherever they are in the world. For example, if I want to test students on vocabulary words, I can use flashcards and show them the answers. Also, if there is a text book which does not have an electronic version I can simply switch from the laptop camera to the HUE HD Pro camera and the student can then read the book clearly. The HUE HD Pro has a manual focus adjustment so you can ensure that the picture is always clear.

I also like that fact that the camera can be plugged in either directly into the laptop USB port or attached to the stand which plugs in. There are also LED lights on the camera which can be switched on or off simply by tapping the camera. There is a built-in microphone also so that sound is clear and crisp even on the other side of the world. The picture quality is stunning with a resolution of 1280×720 (720p).

I cannot imagine now doing online teaching without the HUE HD Pro and would highly recommend it. The versatility and quality are outstanding and it is simple to set up and use.

As well as being able to reach students all over the world in places such as Hong Kong and China, I also teach students in the UK and Europe. Some of these children are home-schooled and online tuition allows a break for the parents along with support in areas of the curriculum that they are not confident with.

One of my students recently told me, ‘I like coming to the lessons, you help me with revision and teach me things I didn’t know. I love being able to have lessons from home without needing to travel anywhere’. As an experienced classroom teacher, I can also see how beneficial this would be for classroom use to demonstrate science projects, for example, to the whole class or even the whole school on an interactive whiteboard.”

The HUE HD Pro also comes with the HUE Intuition software which allows you to take snapshots, record video, annotate video and flip the camera image.

For more information about Juliet’s tutoring programme visit cambridgeacademictuition.co.uk

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