Monday
Today's work was very much segmented by art form, and we were working (mostly) separately from each other. Jason is now completing the last pieces of the animation, as most kids have had a go at animating and the are not begging the teachers to head back to the animation desk (it's a bit of hard graft).
Laura worked with the children to start testing out the shadow puppets and silhouttes, and also was busy casting kids in various roles - narration, puppetry, "special effects" (operating small puppets back of house on the overhead projector), and the silhouette performers. Penelope and Laura wrote a script based on the children's original storyline and text, but which is suited to the multiple theatrical forms we are using.
Cal worked with sound kids on composition and recorded some fab material. There'll be something up on Soundcloud tomorrow for you to listen to. Penelope was busy switching between puppet making and mask costumes for the silhouette performers, and directing puppetry.
Here are photos from today.
Tuesday
Today Laura began with the narration group, reading through the text that Penelope and she scripted yesterday. The children sounded glorious! Laura has made the casting decisions, so that now we rehearse in earnest. In the second session, while Laura rehearsed with the silhouette kids and Penelope operated the lights, Callum set up a sound recording studio in the music room next door and continued recording. After making a pelican puppet for the overhead projector, Jason did a site visit at the hall, to measure up the stage so we are clear for bump in and have the right throw distance for the lighting. Penelope has been constructing shadow puppets and making adjustments to costumes so we are ready for rehearsal in the last session.
PHOTOS FROM TODAY
Script read through
Jason making and testing the pelican shadow puppet for the overhead projector.
Team fish
The afternoon sessions were non stop for Laura an Penelope, as Laura ran a stop start run through (nearly finished all the scenes!) and Penelope ran between costume fitting, puppet finishing and overhead projector wrangling. Call worked on sound - recording and then later without the children making edits. Jason completed all the animation shots, so now ready for layout later this weeek, and Penelope to edit over the weekend, ready for Cal to do his sound magic!
PHOTOS FROM THE AFTERNOON
ARTIST FEEDBACK
Penelope
The past two days have been hectic - exactly as they should be. We have been pulling all the details of the performance and the animation together – the performance especially now. With the scheduling I have drawn up, and the plans we have made together, we are on track. Moreover, it’s looking beautiful! Choosing to blend a number of performance forms, shadow puppetry, silhouette, and overhead projection with live narration means that the focus has to be acute while we line all the parts up. Next week I’m sure that everything will align and we will be on track for tech, dress and final performances.
My favourite moment was hearing the kids narrating. Laura and I created a script based from children’s story outline, but we added some comic style/elements to it. Hearing the children playing the lines was so wonderful. Looking forward to watching it take shape!
Callum
This week was go go go. With the end date approaching, we were working with our separate groups. The sound kids and I began looking at composition this week, as this is the last main element of sound design we hadn’t properly explored. The students really gravitated towards composition and seemed to really enjoy making music. We kept all the tracks in the same key (C, and its relative minor Am), as most of the tonal instruments, like the xylophone and the harp, were tuned to these keys, and it meant the students could focus more on exploring sound and experimenting. I took some demo recordings on the first experiment, one of which was so good I think it’ll be used in the final animation (after I have cleaned it up and added some post processing effects). However, when we started to look at recording and tracking the instruments individually, the kids got a bit self-conscious or just in their head about what they were playing. This is fairly normal - I too always find it hard when I start recording. It can be quite daunting. So I decided to change our approach and the next day (Tuesday), I created a makeshift live recording setup to capture their musical jams in real time, while I silently “composed” the performances.
The students each took turns playing a variety of different melodic and percussive instruments, and created their own musical motifs to experiment on top. At the end of the second day, we had two 8-9 minute recordings that I think, with a little cleaning up and mixing, will sound great for the live performance. All in all, this has been a super productive and special week. The kids had so much fun composing work together, and they were so excited about playing together making some truly beautiful composition pieces.
Jason
This week, I spent no time with the children as I had to complete the animations by the end of Tuesday (29th). Apart from helping erect the shadow screen and assisting in the design and creation of a few of the props for the live performance I was busy with finishing the creation of the Stop Motion puppets and animating the more complex scenes.
On the Tuesday, I spent some time photographing and inspecting the performance venue with Lynne Richardson and was better able to understand what would be required on the bump in and performance days.
I would like to involve the design group in some other way in the process, but I am not sure how at this point. During the week I will download all the Stop Motion clips into a movie and do the layout (place them in order) so that Penelope can edit over the weekend and get the file to Callum who needs to create the soundtrack. I believe the project's on track and looking forward to this coming week where I will be working with the children in lighting operation and other backstage design stuff.
Laura
This week was simply thrilling. After not having been in the space last week is was really quite astonishing to see just how much had been achieved in the two days and stepping into school on Monday and seeing all the puppets and animation and incredible work from the week prior really put into perspective to me just how much happens in two days in this project. This Monday and Tuesday were no exception.
Over the past two days the performance group was divided (by self nominating) into three smaller groups who will be in charge of different elements of the performance piece: the shadow puppeteers, the narrators and the silhouette movement performers. Penelope and I worked together to create a script for the narrators to support the visual element of the story. This script was based on the story that the year 5 cohort had come up with a couple weeks ago. I then worked with our six actors on the narration and it was such a joy to hear the story in their own voices - we’ve got some great story tellers and comedic actors! I spent time with the silhouette actors creating movement sequences to tell the story - it was so pleasing to see how much Mya and Milly had retained from our exploration of silhouette fundamentals a couple of weeks ago, they’re creating some beautiful images and have been so wonderful at following direction. Our shadow puppeteers displayed an ability to work together as a team and are perhaps my favourite part of the visual story - the fish puppets with their rainbow scales are particularly magical.
I’m constantly reminded how capable and creative these kids are - we had some sensational suggestions from the group (like adding bubbles to our under water scenes) and their ability to problem solve in a creative way means we are really co-collaborating with them to create this work. Next week, our performance aim is to get a first run through on Monday and then be rehearsing all Tuesday. I can’t wait!
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