Year 10 Animation Project

In March last year, the school applied for inclusion on a DV Pilot run by C2k.  We were successful and to facilitate us in our work, we received an eMac Computer, DV Camera and keyboardThe project, called Environment Matters was launched in Year 9 Geography classes in May where we discussed local and global environmental issues such as climate change, rainforest deforestation, pollution, recycling and litter.  At the same time, the ICT Department taught the pupils the skills of video editing.  Later, around June time, the Year 9s were divided into groups (based on the Art classes) of four or five.  This allowed the English Department to begin creative writing tasks where each group had to produce a story based around an environmental theme.

These tasks were finished by September and now the Art and Design Department was able to bring the stories to life by constructing sets and plasticine models which was facilitated by the school in having two ‘collapsed timetable’ days.

Between October and mid December the pressure was on to complete the filming, editing, voiceovers and music before the screening day fixed for 19 December!  This proved to be quite time consuming, even after three days of collapsed timetable.  The problem was complicated by the fact that we had only five Macs at our disposal.  However, Bernard McCloskey from the Northern Ireland Television and Film Commission helped us by providing extra equipment.

We got there in the end and on Tuesday 19 December we closed the project by screening all animations in the hall under the guise of “An Oscar Ceremony”!  A panel of external judges (Arthur Webb and Marie O’Donoghue – BELB and Bernard McCluskey –NIFTC) were present as well as about 40 parents and guests from other schools and CCEA.  After the screening and much deliberation the judges made the following decisions: