Wednesday 21st October 2009

After missing out on the boat trips last week (felled by a poorly stomach!), managed to get a day in the space with groups from Year 4 working up scripts and ideas based on the work to date. All in all a very productive and relaxed day.
The children started working directly with the archive film "Easter on Shipley Glen". Being a silent film (at least my techno-phobia prevented any sound appearing) we decided to script and voice over the footage.

Some could say the results were... random, others maybe would class them more as experimental (!) but either way it was a very enjoyable outcome.

There is something ashamedly amusing about the clash/combination of old footage (victorian) and modern language; particularly when one group decides that the image of 3 well dressed victorian ladies walking across the screen holding their satelite dish shaped hats could only be enhanced by the addition of dialogue like "...and so I said like whatever, and he was all like shut up, and i said no way..."

Random or Experimental. You decide.

That said, the timings and the attention to the mannerisms of the characters in the film by the children was very impressive; with subtle moves and expressions being picked up upon and acted on.

Next we had a look at some of the clay model characters some other groups had created and decided to give them a voice and background, cross referencing with a map of Shipley from 1908 and the archive film again.

Working from basic questions such as "where do they live?" "where do they work?" etc. and "what would they be doing in the film and why would they be there?" the groups built their characters into very rounded and complex individuals.

Interestingly, the groups ability to ground these characters in a specific era seemed much easier, than when working from the archive footage directly. By the end of it an entire cast of characters, mostly interlinked (either through family and proximity), had been created that could easily populate (and successful run) a small village.

Lunchtime - bumped into Lou who had been working with another group on the canal, sailing up and down, drawing and painting. Jealous? Me? No never, not in the slightest. Not a bit. Did I mention I missed the boat trips?

Finally, we had a look at the photos from Paul and Richards previous session (how ace are they?) and I had to overcome my own fear of the childcatcher from 'chitty chitty bang bang' (can anyone else see the unnerving ressemblance?)

Group were then charged with the task of working out why the photo was taken, who was in the photo and what was said just before and after the photo was taken. This definately produced the richest dialogue of the day (and some of the darkest), though not neccesarily the most relevant to the project.

As I say, all in all a very enjoyable day and very relaxing (bar the brilliant but scary photo).

Trying to work out now, why it is essential that my next session needs to happen on a boat. Struggling to think of anything, so answers on a postcard please.