Plog

Meden School are working with BSF - Building Schools for the Future - to build and develop their school.

Miss Musson, Head of Performance, asked us to work with a team of BSF Arts pupils for 3 days, to bring together their ideas for a new school using film and animation; students considered how to develop skills and learning in creative arts, and ways of integrating this into the rest of school.

The resulting film was meant to be 2 minutes, but with so many great ideas and brilliant bits of footage, it turned out to be six! Please take a look…

If you’ve been involved in this project - students, school staff, BSF team, anyone - please add your comments below!

Imagine a festival somewhere in a parallel universe… Where giant slugs serve pizza and guinea pigs eat pies, romance blossoms for penguins and portaloos, monster musicians play on stage, kitchen utensils form a band, and the crowd contains all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures! Here it is…

Almost 100 short animations made by hundreds of young people, in a few hours, in a big red tent.

This, our fourth time at the greenman, was exciting and fun - we worked with more young people than ever before, and we were really impressed with the ideas, patience, creativity and skills that we saw! Well done to all who took part.

Thanks to Ste and Sian, Emily, Eileen and all the crew in the kids area, and also to Remix, who very kindly let us use the music that young people made with them during the festival.

(See the comments for animation software tips and links)

We are often asked to work creatively with curriculum subjects.  Recently Newtons Walk pupils were learning about the Victorians, and we were excited to bring their lessons to life with animation!

Ideas of the past became real - thoughts of hot air balloons, Victorian explorers, steam engines and crazy inventions were captured in an animated film, when pupils used drawing, collage, colour, light and shadow to make an old fashioned looking film about what went on 100 years ago!

Our regular work in Newtons Walk PRU is organised by QUAD.

A while ago we were asked to make a film for young people (linked to The Big Spring Clean), that could help to highlight the problems that litter can cause.  Residents in Aspley, Nottingham, had been talking about their concerns of rubbish on the streets, this is the result…

When Paul and Laura in Children’s Services first got in touch, we quickly decided that the film would need to balance a strong positive message about litter with lots of fun and excitement.  Who wants to watch a film that lectures them about dropping litter and getting a fine?!

So, a story took shape - inspired by a fairy tale - that would include local members of Streetscene (the good folks who try their best to keep our streets looking tidy even if we don’t), Community Protection Officers, working alongside young people to combat evil animated litter characters! The whole thing is supposed to be about the community working together.

The next step was getting stuck in with the Eco Team at Ambleside Primary school, to make the film - it was brilliant fun.  The four days that we spent with them were incredibly busy, crammed full of loads of activities; to draw and design backgrounds for the scenes, teach them about the basics of stop motion animation, get the rubbish and it’s facial expressions moving, and to record sound effects and character voices.

This, combined with one day of filming the live-action stuff with all the humans in, gave us a huge amount of editing to do!  Slowly, one by one, we have built up the layers of the film - the backgrounds first, which we overlaid with the live-action sequences, followed by the animated rubbish and it’s expressions, and lastly the sound, voices and music too. Phew! (It’s also our first experiment with filming in high definition, see it in HD here.)

It’s hard for us to watch the film now - we’ve seen it so many times, and we still see things we’d like to change - could it be faster or brighter?  We wish that we could have got some people from other ethnic backgrounds in there too, that’s what Nottingham is like, a real mix. Still, we’re really proud of what everyone did and how hard they worked.

Please share this film, we hope you’ll enjoy it and that it might make you laugh, but litter on our streets is pretty serious, it’s smelly, ugly, inconsiderate… Just not good at all! Can you clean up your act?

Thanks to Ambleside Primary School, Mr Forshaw, and last years’ Eco Team, also to the actors - Anthony, Bianca, Kara, Jake, Phil, Craig and Ian, and to those behind the scenes - Lee-Anne, Laura and Paul.

We’ve posted a lot about animation and films recently, so here’s something to redress the balance a little.

This was a really short and sweet project with Southglade Primary school last summer. They asked us to help build a tree for the school reception, to be part of a quiet area where children could read and think about their hopes and wishes.

We worked with all of the infants in the school hall (the only room big enough) to make leaves, blossom, and branches using found, reclaimed and recycled materials - plastic bottles, tin can bells, scraps of discarded paper, cardboard, carpet and twine.

The young people made birds and butterflies to sit among the leaves and the branches had pegs attached, for people to pin their thoughts to. Finally the tree was shuffled out by the window, with seats and a table under its shade.

We had a really wonderful time, but it was incredibly hectic! We learned a great deal about working with lots of people - two class at a time, doing multiple activities in the hall together. Piles of carefully sorted coloured materials gradually migrating to every corner. But there was such excitement, and as the tree grew, a real sense of wonder in the air.

Expect more in this vein soon!

Talking of bones (which we were before all the technical problems):

Here’s a short film animated by young people visiting Creswell Crags last Saturday. If you don’t know, Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge full of ancient caves. The Caves are full of the remains of animals and human tools,  and they’re the only known place where you can see Ice Age rock art anywhere in this country! Pictures that are around 13,000 years old.

Well, what an inspiring place! Working outside under a tent, children drew Ice Age animals, hunters and scenes using crayons and charcoal - Afterward animating them really quickly, to tell simple stories.

The changing light in the tent really added to the effect! Like flickering fire-light. Later we added photographs of the rock walls in the background.

The music was made by Newgate Lane primary school on their hand made instruments.

A magical time! We spent 6 days (over as many weeks) with pupils at Newtons Walk school building personal dens: Drawing plans and making models; building with bamboo, willow and cloth.

We set up a small village in the school hall, and projected drawings and animations that the children had made to match the shape of thier structures onto the sheer cloth walls. They could live inside their pictures!

After we’d played inside them, slept, invited our friends over for tea, rigged up a telephone network with tin cans and string and generally had a rum old time; amazingly everyone wanted to take their creations home! Greg the headteacher strapped them to a van and drove around derby installing the dens in gardens and bedrooms.

Quad funded and organised the sessions.

Now and again we work at our local allotments. We warm our toes by the fire, enjoy soup and delicious homemade cake, and run simple, fun arts activities with people who come along.

Winter nights bring darkness to st ann’s allotments early in the afternoon, so the community orchard’s December open day is always lit by candles and lanterns

Being the sort of people that don’t think twice about speaking to our house plants or stroking admiringly at a choice piece of moss - we were really happy to be asked to make some short films for the Camden Green Fair 2008.

We spent a few days down in London and not only did we see some lovely places, but we also made three short but sweet little films for the Fair. All three films were made in a similar way - with cameras, computers and recycled or recyclable collage materials, yet each one by a different group or venue…

The London Tigers shared their interests in football, sports and being healthy.

Young people at Kentish Town City Farm brought the animals and farm surroundings to life.

While people at Camley Street Nature Reserve animated the nearby creepy crawlies and wildlife.

Organised and funded by the Camden Green Fair and the Local Network Fund.