Back in December 2007

December

Following on from the UNE Creative Animations workshop with two of my year 7 students, I took the skills I had learnt back to the classroom. The two students I had taken with three others had written a script for the inaugural Namoi CMA script writing competition. They unfortunately hadn't won, but here was the means for them to have the fulfillment of completing their vision and gain the satisfaction of taking their project full circle.

A few planning sessions followed where the girls divided the script into manageable sections, decided on backgrounds and cast members. The girls were so enthusiastic that they were happy to get as many supplies from home as were necessary and even completed each of the 5 background boxes at home in their own time. From there they only needed condensed time. I deliberately timed the filming for the end of year when I knew other teachers would not mind the girls being out of class. Setting them up with the digital camera on a tripod in the book room they worked well together, sharing the tasks to take photo after photo after photo.

They were long days, but the girls were so involved in the creativity of the task, the satisfaction of completing something they had started, that they never swayed. Each time they completed a section of the script they would crowd around for the uploading of the photos and watched in awe as using Quicktime pro 7 they were turned into a little movie.

As a teacher, I can't begin to express my own joy at the learning and devotion my students demonstrated with this task. This is the power of connected learning...watch out for them at film festivals!

Melanie