Young  Shoots for The Rural Media Company

Young Shoots is a Film: 21st Century Literacy pilot project that aims to engage youngpeople in Herefordshire with film culture and filmmaking. The projectis being run by The Rural Media Company and as the Project Coordinator, I’m facilitating the setting up of after school film clubs and filmmaking workshops in schools, youth centres and community venuesacross Herefordshire.

You can follow the progress of Young Shoots at http://rmcyoungshoots.wordpress.com

Children’s Saturday morning cinema clubs at The Electric

Over the last few months I’ve been working with Tom Lawes at The Electric Cinema in Birmingham to programme film screenings and plan activities to attract a younger audience to the UK’s oldest working cinema.  The programme kicks off on September 19th and September 26th with two cinema clubs:

Electric Kids is for 4-7 year olds, and is designed for families to take part together so children must be accompanied by a parent or carer. I’ll run a hour an hour activity to welcome families to the cinema and introduce  ‘Muppets From Space’ which will start at 11.00am.
 
Electric Juniors is for 8-12 year olds who can be dropped off at 11.00am to take part in an hour-long creative workshop exploring film reviewing before ‘E.T: The Extra Terrestrial’ starts at 12.00 noon.

I really hope that the first two weeks of this initiative is well received as that will dictate whether the clubs can become a regularfixture on the programme……fingers crossed for large audiences!

To book tickets for either Electric Kids or Electric Juniors click here!

The competition closed at the beginning of April and I was thrilled by the response it got. We received a scrapbook and DVD from one school documenting the ‘making of’ their trailer and some schools, libraries and even groups of parents set up animation workshops / clubs for the sole purpose of entering the competition!

We chose 2 winners and 3 runners up who won animation equipment and software from Kudlian Software, the chance to visit the facilities of top trailer makers the Picture Production Company and to submit their trailers to the Media Archive for Central England for future generations to enjoy.

All of the selected trailers can be viewed on First Light Movies’ Vimeo channel see the links below. I have also embedded the two winning trailers into this post. Enjoy!

4-7 age category:

Winner – ‘The Magic Finger’ by Roald Dahl  by Year 2 pupils from Mosborough Primary School in Sheffield.

Runner up – ‘Hooray for Fish’ by Lucy Cousins by Year 1  pupils from St Nicholas’ Primary School in Oxfordshire

8-12 age categoryWinner – ‘The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips’ by Michael Morpurgo by P7 pupils from Maisondieu Primary School in Angus

Runner up – ‘Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears’ by Emily Gravett by Year 6 pupils from Chilton School in Oxfordshire

Runner up – ‘Lost in the Storm’ by Holly Webb by P5 pupils from Edzell Primary School in Angus

All four articles show teachers how to use film and filmmaking to support units in the Primary Framework for Literacy and cover topics such as stories about fantasy worlds, animation, stories with familiar settings and poetry. Today I received some lovely feedback from Child Education’s teachers panel on my articles:

“It is a different approach to Literacy lessons which I think the children will respond to very well. They all love watching films and they will be a good stimulus.”

“Love this! Very hot topic at uni at the mo, so links in with the work we’ve been doing there.”

“Visual literacy is big news. More please!”

“By using film within literacy teaching gives children a chance to really understand what they are watching and why the director chose to do it in particular ways – we do this with reading so we also need to do it with visual literacy.”

Hurray!

‘Azur and Asmar: The Princes’ Quest’, now available on DVD, is a beautiful fairytale, which explores sibling rivalry and the need to find your own way in the world. Read Film Four’s review of ‘Azur and Asmar: The Princes’ Quest here.

The film is full of vivid colours and intricate drawing and Michel makes surfaces glow and sparkle by using different shades of each colour and varying styles of illutstration for different parts of the frames – the costumes are flat and plain, hands and faces are detailed and jewels are drawn so that they look real!

Michel draws a storyboard for every single frame of his animations so he can decide how he will position the characters. For example if he is showing somebody sword fighting he will draw him in profile so that the audience we be able to see right away what the character is doing. When sword fighters are shown from the front their arms and swords disappear.

‘Azur and Asmar: The Princes’ Quest’ was created with drawn animation but some of Michel’s other work such as ‘Princes and Princesses’ use paper cut-out characters, which are as beautiful and as detailed as his drawn work.

Wonderful world cinema!

Film is a wonderful cultural resource, world cinema in particular can introduce children to vibrant, diverse and exciting characters, locations and stories. As this post shows it can also introduce aspiring filmmakers to new viewpoints, approaches and techniques; children and young people should be given the opportunity to see more films set amd made around the world.

All four articles show teachers how to use film and filmmaking to support units in the Primary Framework for Literacy and the first article Stories about fantasy worlds appears in the April issue which is out now!

I found myself more than a little impressed by the new look of the magazine when I received my copy in the post and love the way they laid out and presented my article to tie in with an outer space theme and using images from one of my three focus films Space Trees: 

What type of animation?

2D drawn and cut out

Make your characters and settings from cardboard and attach split pins to joints so that you can move your characters.

Silhouette animation

Use cut out figures made from black card and animate them on a white background or a lightbox. Show children some of Lotte Reiniger’s work on Screenonline and the First Light Movies film ‘The Princess and the Pendant’ made by 5-6 year olds from Hartside Primary School.

Sand

Sand animation is produced using tools or fingers to make marks in a sheet of paper covered in sand or in a tray of sand.

Claymation

The easiest way to make your own Aardman style animations in the classroom is to make 3D characters out of plasticine.

Here are some tips on how to make the perfect 3D character for animation:

Keep models simple without too much detail

Insert wire so that you can make moving joints or make your whole figure from wire and mould the plasticine round it.

Don’t make your models too big or heavy; instead of using lumps of plasticine for the head, roll paper into a ball and cover it with plasticine.

Give your model a large base and not too big a head so that it doesn’t topple over!

Online animation resources:

Introducing animation

Flipbook!

Make and save digital flipbooks online. NB There may be flipbook animations created by users on this site that are unsuitable for children, so don’t allow them to browse without supervision.

Pivot Stickfigure

A free download you can install on your computer that demonstrates how animation works by enabling you to make short animations with stick figures.

Stop frame animation software

Frame Thief can be downloaded free from the internet and can be used on Mac computers.

MonkeyJam is a free animation download for PCs.

I Can Animate is suitable for Macs and PCs both these packages are quite inexpensive and have been designed to be used by children.

The Screenonline Education Zone can be accessed for free from your school computer and it provides moving images resources and lesson ideas to help support your teaching. Each clip featured on Screenonline is supported by contextual material from expert writers as well as stills, posters and press books, providing a huge bank of resources that you can search and use in your lessons.

Box of Delights

At the beginning of the year I wrote teaching notes for Screenonline’s Box of Delights collection – 9 British short films that can be used to support the teaching of a range of subjects in the Key Stage 2 Curriculum. Each film is supported by key questions and teaching ideas which support the teaching of QCA schemes of work, units from the Primary Framework for Literacy and SEAL themes, as well as National Curriculum objectives.

The nine films in this collection have been chosen for their breadth and diversity and feature animated African dancing, flying cars, battered bicycles and instructions on how to fill a bath! There are examples of early filmmaking, public relationship films from the 1940s and modern dramas which both you and your class will enjoy exploring in your lessons.

Follow the links below to explore the films now:

Dance Lexie Dance - PSHE Yrs 3-6

Soho Square - Citizenship Yrs 1-6 and Art and Design Yrs 5/6

Feet of Song - Music Yrs 5/6 and Art and Design Yrs 5/6

One Potato Two Potato - History Yrs 5/6

The Ballad of the Battered Bicycle - Citizenship Yrs 3-6, Literacy Yr 3 and Yr 4

The Five-Inch Bather - History Yrs 3/4 and Literacy Yr 4

Quite Unfit for Females - Citizenship Yrs 3-6

Birth of a Flower - Science Yr 3 and Literacy Yr 4

The ? Motorist - Literacy Yr 4

Log on from your school computer

Access to the moving image material on Screenonline is free and available to all UK schools, colleges, universities and public libraries through the National Education Network or JANET.

If you are experiencing problems viewing the clips however you may need to make sure that your IP address is registered with Screenonline. More information about registering can be found here.

Log on now to utililse a bank of over 3000 moving image texts in your classroom

Film connects people like no other form of media. It makes us laugh and cry; it inspires awe and wonder.

Film can take us to far away places where we can meet new peoples, cultures and societies.

Film is media that transcends barriers in literacy, language and background.

Film as a teaching tool:

Moving image is hugely influential on our lives and in this age of digital technology, film is one of the first cultural experiences children have; its potential for teaching and learning is vast.

Moving image texts can be ‘read’ in similar ways to a print texts. Responding to and analysing film enables children to develop comprehension skills and an understanding of story structure; it also helps them extend their vocabulary through the language of image, music and sound. There are now several units in the Primary Framework for Literacy that call for the study of film.