Margaret Metcalfe, teacher at Bensham Grove Community Nursery School, Gateshead, tells the story
We certainly ended up reaching for the stars when our space project led to the nursery children making their own animated film, complete with aliens and a monster.
The nursery has some great 'spaceman' dressing-up outfits which stimulated the making of rocket models from scrap materials and sparked a project on outer space. During the project we looked through telescopes, used reference books to find out more about planets and stars, read story books with space themes and used our imaginations for space-inspired music and movement sessions.
When the nursery was contacted to see if we were interested in taking part in a film project, funded by Gateshead Early Years and Childcare Service in partnership with Tyneside Cinema Education and Outreach Department, it was too good an opportunity to miss. We needed to put forward a story proposal and, on discussion with the nursery children, outer space became our theme.
We submitted our idea to Tyneside Cinema and were really excited when we heard we'd been chosen to take part.
We'd all seen animations such as Wallace and Gromit, but didn't have a clue how much work went into creating the films or how it was done. A colleague and I received basic animation training and we were allocated a mentor, Robin Webb, who worked with us and five four-year-old children during the six-week project.
Story time
Our story, 'NP6 Meets the Shadow Monster', was inspired by the children having read Nick Butterworth's 'Q Pootle 5' books. We brainstormed ideas of what could happen and came up with a simple tale of alien NP6 receiving an e-mail inviting him to a party, with the instruction to bring a bottle of pop. Unfortunately his space ship is invaded by a Shadow Monster who, on suggestion from one of the children, boards the ship through a drinks dispenser. The Shadow Monster demands, 'Give me your pop!'
The children didn't want the monster taking the fizzy drink and spent time querying how NP6 could get rid of him. One child had seen a bottle of champagne being uncorked and decided that NP6 would shake the bottle of pop and it would explode over the monster and scare him away.
On arrival at the party, NP6 is frightened by another Shadow Monster, but this one is a nice monster who has brought food and fizzy drink to share.
The film culminates with NP6 realising that not all Shadow Monsters are bad.
The children designed the models. On top of all the creativity, this activity involved a lot of problem-solving. We wanted NP6's head to be round, so we used a detergent ball which fitted nicely on top of a bottle 'body'. He needed arms that could be moved and made to press buttons. This caused a problem. Thankfully there was an electrician working in the nursery at the time and we were able to use some grey electrical wire that was easy to bend. One of the children was brilliant at working out how to attach the 'arms' to the body.
Portraying the Shadow Monster was also a challenge. The children explored shadows to work out how he should look. They eventually opted for using a piece of black Lycra. This gave the wanted shadowy look and movement and allowed the monster to easily enter the space ship through the drinks dispenser.
Unfortunately, we were only able to do the majority of the project with five children, but others were able to help with various stages, such as painting the film sets.
Scene setting
Once the story was written and all the props were made, we compiled a storyboard. This was like a rough comic of the film and showed the story step by step. It was interesting to break the story down into different stages and think through what would be happening in each scene. It also helped the children to think through what happens during a story and how it needs a beginning, middle and end.
The storyboard stage was followed by a simplified mock-up called animatics, which Robin did for us. This was a series of still images edited together and displayed as a sequence to give us a better idea of how the planned scenes would look in motion.
We were then ready to start filming the actual animation. This was painstaking. Hours of work resulted in just seconds of actual footage. It certainly taught us all patience!
The filming required setting up the sets and then gradually moving the characters and props by just a fraction and taking a digital photograph of each stage. It was a complicated process and we had to keep a record of how many shots we'd made. It could be frustrating at times, because we'd quickly take a picture and realise that one of us was still in shot and have to re-do it. We also had to be very careful with continuity.
We wanted to make things look like they were flying past the space ship.
The children had to work out perspective and understand dimensions to make the objects look like they were coming closer or going further away.
Robin helped a lot with the technical side of making the animation, especially using the Windows Movie Maker program. Recording the sound was particularly fun. The children were so imaginative with the sound effects, and they put a lot of effort into thinking through the characters and putting on different voices. The children wanted 'tinkly music' for the title track. We made up a song which they all sang and we played instruments such as chime bars, xylophone and bells.
Film stars
It took weeks of work to complete the filming, which boiled down to a total of just two-and-a-half minutes of animation! It felt such an achievement to have completed it. A real bonus was that we all got invited to a premiere of our film at Tyneside Cinema.
We hired a bus and the five children who had been involved took their parents along to watch. It was very exciting to view it on a huge screen and to see all our names come up at the end.
The parents couldn't believe it. Their children had been talking at home about what they were doing, but they were all surprised at how sophisticated the film looked. It made such a special end to the project.
We also showed the animation at nursery for all the other children and staff to enjoy.
All I learned through making the short animation is not going to waste. I'm now working with parents to shoot and edit a DVD about the nursery school.
We also plan to do more animation filming with the children. Who knows, one of them could go on to win an Oscar.
Margaret Metcalfe spoke to Annette Rawstrone
