The ins and outs of animation
Creative minds put to work as Grade 6 class create stop-motion short films
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Thursday, March 16, 2017
LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
What do you get when you give a child a landscape scene, a ball of clay and an iPad?
Youth from Bompas Elementary School's Grade 6 class gather around Jessie Curell, left, as she demonstrates stop-motion techniques on an iPad. Clockwise from left are Curell, Jaicee Tsetso with Gabriella Hardisty-Beaverho behind her, Landon Konisenta, Tanner Isaiah in the red cap, Grade 6 teacher Leanne Jose and Garry Ekotla in front. - April Hudson/NNSL photos
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It turns out the creative impulses at Bompas Elementary School only get stronger when challenged, and students in the Grade 6 class can now call themselves film producers, writers and directors.
It all started March 9 when Jessie Curell, the director for Hands-On Media Education out of Montreal, arrived at Bompas. Her goal was to have students create a stop-motion animation film using four separate landscape paintings and their own people and objects out of clay.
Fort Simpson was the last of six stops Curell made during a territorywide tour. Hands-On Media Education works with students on digital literacy, offering workshops in digital storytelling as well as stop-motion animation.
Curell spent two days with the students at Bompas, teaching them the ins and outs of creating their own short films.
Students ran with the projects, first developing a storyboard and then creating characters and objects to animate. They then added audio and sound effects to their animation, with the end result being a complete short film created on iPads provided by the school.
"I'm really impressed. The students here have spent a lot of time making sure their animation is really smooth," Curell said.
"A lot of kids are too impatient and will move the character too quickly but these kids have been (meticulous)."
Students created four animations based on paintings of a moose in the tundra, an underwater scene, a forest scene and an Arctic landscape. The animations featured colourful characters and creatures.
"I've never seen such dedicated animators," Curell said with a laugh.
The Bompas workshop brought the total of films created during Curell's trip to 54. The workshop tour began a month ago as a partnership with Western Arctic Moving Pictures, bolstered by funding through the Canada Council for the Arts and Northwest Territories Arts Council.
Aside from Fort Simpson, Curell held workshops in Whati, Inuvik, Dettah, Yellowknife and at a bush camp in the Sahtu between Deline and Tulita.
"It was unbelievable," she said of that experience.
While Curell has focused on stop-motion animation with younger students, she has also run digital storytelling workshops with older students and elders.
That involved photography as well as video editing, using technology students have access to in their classrooms.
"We were asking the students to think about who they are," she explained.
"Some took it to the next level and did anti-bullying projects. A horror movie was done in Inuvik; a student in Whati read a poem he wrote and then added photos to it.
"It's been amazing."
