FORT FRANCES—First Nations students at St. Francis School here are putting their computer knowledge and their creativity to work in a single project—a computer animation of the Ojibway creation story of Nanaboozhoo.
Brian Smith’s Native as a Second Language class at St. Francis has been working on the project for a couple of weeks, with the help of Wayne Anderson, communications technician with Seven Generations Education Institute.
The 26 students in Smith’s class range from Grades 4-8, and each one has a role in the creation of the animated short.
Before beginning the animation, they discussed as a class what sort of story they’d like to tell.
Smith said they chose not to tell a legend because they’re only told in winter. Instead, they wanted a story that could be told year-round.
Each student wrote a short story they’d like to see brought to life through animation. “We picked one out of all the stories that were written,” Smith explained.
It was Grade 8 student Espirit Friday’s story that was chosen. “It’s about how Nanaboozhoo created the Earth,” Smith noted.
With the story chosen, Anderson began showing them how to translate that into animation.
“I’ve been telling them about the importance of storyboards. Everything from a commercial to TV shows, they all have them,” he explained.
Storyboards are used to draw out the story in still pictures scene by scene so the creators can decide on angles, composition, close-ups, etc.
“Each student is responsible for a specific scene,” Smith noted.
With the storyboards finished and posted on the walls of the classroom, the animation began.
Anderson brought in his old Commodore Amiga and its animation software. Several years ago, he taught the same program to kids at Robert Moore and other schools in the district.
“Ten years ago, kids weren’t sure what a keyboard was, what a monitor was,” he noted.
Students’ knowledge of computers has increased dramatically in that time. “Today, the kids’ computer skills are pretty darn high,” Anderson remarked.
Anderson brought in some examples of the animation he did with his students 10 years ago to show the class at St. Francis.
“The kids said, ‘We can do better than that,’” he chuckled.
He stressed that his role is to show the students how to plan and use the software, but all decisions rest with them.
“I’m just guiding the kids. I’m not drawing for them,” he stressed.
The students currently are in the process of drawing and then animating their short film. Each one gets a time slot on the computer to do their part.
“All the kids have to do an animal—a moving animal,” Anderson said.
“The opening shot should be an elaborate one. We do have an ending, we’re just not sure what it’s going to look like,” he laughed.
Beyond the pictures, some musicians in the class will compose music to accompany the story while others will narrate and do two short speaking parts.
Remarkably, they plan to have two versions: one in English with Ojibway subtitles and another in Ojibway with English subtitles.
“Right now, we’re in the process of translating it into Ojibway,” Smith noted.
“All the students will do a part, then we’ll take all the parts and put them all together in one big editing session,” he explained.
“I tell these kids we don’t want to watch TV, we want to make TV,” he added.
The way they’ve written the story, future classes could decide to make a sequel if they want.
“The ending lends itself to a ‘To be continued,’” Anderson said with a grin.
The students have been working on their project for a couple of weeks now, with Smith saying they expect to finish by month’s end.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
