Hay River (Jun 05/06) - After participating in recent claymation workshops presented by the National Film Board of Canada, 180 students in Hay River can now honestly claim to be filmmakers.

The students were part of claymation workshops held May 24 - 26, where they created a series of short films.

Cole Dupuis, a student at Hay River's Princess Alexandra School, adjusts a claymation character with the help of Negin Dahya, an animation workshop facilitator from the National Film Board in Toronto. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

The workshops were held at Diamond Jenness secondary school and Princess Alexandra school.

A session for adults was held at the public library.

The workshop visited only Hay River in the entire NWT and was a hit with students at Princess Alexandra.

Brayden Bouchard, 10, and a group of other Grade 5 students, helped create a film featuring two characters.

"They do a high five and one does a cartwheel," Brayden explained, adding he had never before done animation.

Cole Dupuis, 10, also had fun helping to make a movie of a snail racing in a car.

Christine Gagnier, 11, said it was fun to learn how to make a film. "It's hard to do it with clay," Gagnier said.

The workshop was facilitated by two representatives of the NFB from Toronto - Laurie Lambert and Negin Dahya.

"What we call it is 'The Secrets of Animation'," Lambert said, noting the workshop included information on the history of the NFB and its animation studio.

Participants worked in small groups and created their own clay characters and storylines. Lambert and Dahya explained how a special animation computer - known as Lunchbox - is used to create animation films at 24 frames per second.

While the NFB representatives operated Lunchbox, the students set up the stage - a background a bit bigger than a sheet of paper - and took turns moving the characters. One picture was taken at a time and they were combined to create the illusion of movement.

"They figured it out pretty quickly," Lambert said of the students. Dahya said the films had creative topics, such as a princess having a picnic only to have her basket taken by a bunny and also an alien and a human shaking hands.

"You can say a lot in pictures," Dahya said.

Lambert said the only guidelines for the students were that they couldn't use a character from movies or TV, no violence was permitted in the films and the topics had to be respectful.

The plasticine characters are generally as tall as a finger.

Lambert said the films created are a lot more basic than some of the more well-known claymation films, such as 'Chicken Run'.

"Really, the point is to expose students to animation," she said. "It's breeding the next generation of animators."

Lambert and Dahya said the Hay River students enjoyed the workshop.

"They loved it," Dahya said. "They had a lot of fun with it."She said one of the reasons young people enjoy it so much is that it's a three-dimensional art form.

"It's very hands-on," Lambert noted. "You don't necessarily need to know how to draw."

The workshop was an initiative of Brenda Hall, executive director of Growing Together, a program for children and their caregivers.

Hall said she was walking in Toronto about a year ago when she saw a poster for a claymation workshop.

"I said, 'We have to bring that here.'"

Hall said she wanted to give a new experience to young people in Hay River.