Big Screens, Little Folks Study Guide 2016

Big Screens, Little Folks 2016 School Programs Shorter and Sweeter: Short films for Grades K -3 Bunny New Girl - Australia Macropolis - UK The Mitten - Belgium Ghost Hour - Latvia Papa - USA Fred & Anabel - Germany The Elephant and the Bicycle - France Guards of the Forest – Latvia The Moon and I - Germany Little Rice Ball – Japan

Full Length Feature: Grades 4 and 5 Oddball

Shorter and Sweeter: Short films for Grades K -3

Bunny New Girl Writer/Producer/Director: Natalie van den Dungen Australia, 2015 6 min.

Live Action Trailer: https://vimeo.com/113460134 https://bunnynewgirl.com/video/

Website: www.bunnynewgirl.com

SYNOPSIS Seven year old Annabelle arrives for her first day at a new school wearing a home made rabbit mask. And despite the gentle reassurance of kindly teacher, Mr Borbidge, her classmates are soon wondering what it is she’s hiding. When the class bully exposes her secret, it takes the empathy of a new friend to give her the courage to be seen, just the way she is.

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Macropolis Director: Joel Simon England 2012 8 min Stop-motion Animation Trailer: https://vimeo.com/61255998 Website: http://www.flickerpix.com/

SYNOPSIS MACROPOLIS is the story of two toys discarded from a factory production line. Coming to life, they rebel and chase the factory delivery van in the hope of rejoining their friends. Lost in the unfamiliar, urban big city, they are overwhelmed by the challenge ahead. By reinterpreting the world that now surrounds them, through their unique perspectives, they begin to play with littered everyday objects to find their way back.

About the Movie: MACROPOLIS was commissioned by Unlimited for the London 2012 Festival. Unlimited encourages collaborations and partnerships between disability arts organizations, disabled and deaf artists, producers, and mainstream organizations to create original and exciting work in celebration of the inspiration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The cat wears an eye patch, and his friend the dog has a leg that doesn’t quite touch the ground.

Writer and director Joel Symon says, “The dog with the prosthetic leg, that’s me.”

Movie Math

Stop-­‐motion animation uses models placed in a scene, which are moved tiny amounts, with an image being taken after each move. Then, they’re moved again, and another image is taken.

Usually, there are 24 images (or frames) per second of animation we see on screen.

Ask students to investigate this question in pairs: • Macropolis is 8 minutes long. How many seconds is that?

• If every second is made up of 24 separate images or frames, how many images would the animators have had to draw to create the whole film?

The Mitten Director: Clémentine Robach Belgium 2014 8 min.

Animation Trailer: https://vimeo.com/96065186

Website: http://www.lesfilmsdunord.com/#!la-moufle/c3z1 SYNOPSIS It is snowing. Lily and her grandfather are making a little bird house to help the birds survive over the winter. "But where do the other animals in the garden find shelter in winter?" wonders the little girl. So she puts one of her mittens at the foot of the tree where they have fastened the bird house.

Ghost Hour Director: Nils Skapans Latvia 2014 7 min Claymation More at: http://tiff.net/festivals/ Tiffkidsfestival15/film-list/ creativity-x-curiostiy/ghost-hour

Presented with the support of the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia

SYNOPSIS As every evening, the Ghost goes to work - to haunt and frighten. Even in his worst nightmares the Ghost hadn't imagined he'd meet such a 'terrifying' girl. A girl who is not afraid of him!

Papa Director: Natalie Labarre USA 2015 3 min.

Animation Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=fgynUed6bKs Website: http://papafilm.tumblr.com/ SYNOPSIS An overzealous father thinks that he can invent the perfect guardian for his daughter, but it turns out no invention can replace this father/daughter duo.

Fred & Anabel Director: Ralk Kukula Germany 2015 8 min.

Animation Supported by the Goethe-Institut Chicago

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-BhXtsp3F8 SYNOPSIS Fred the feline and Anabel the goose are the best of friends, spending summer days romping through fields and swinging breezily from the trees. But when autumn sends Anabel flying off with her flock, Fred is left longing all winter for his companion.

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The Elephant and the Bicycle (Le vélo de l’éléphant) Director: Olesya Shchukina France/Belgium 2014 9 mins Cut-out Animation Trailer: https://vimeo.com/94838847 Presented with the support of the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia

SYNOPSIS An elephant lives in a town among people and works as a street cleaner; he usually spends his wages on his favorite food - bananas. One day, he sees a huge billboard advertising a bicycle. It seems the perfect size for him! This is the minute the elephant’s life changes: he has to get this bicycle whatever it costs him. Find out what happens when things don’t go to plan and the elephant no longer wants to clean the town.

Study Materials: Dundee Contemporary Arts’ Discovery Film Festival at discoveryfilmfestival.org.uk lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Before the film: Predicting the story Watch the trailer with the children. Get them to think, pair and share, feeding their ideas back to the class about what they think might happen in the film. These questions could be used to simulate discussion: does the elephant get his bicycle? If he does, where does he go and what does he do?

After the film Discuss what happened, how do their predictions compare with the actual story? llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Activity 1 - Environmental Issues/ Litter Discussion Questions • What did the elephant do to get the bike?

• Why was the elephant disappointed with the bike?

• What happened when the elephant stopped cleaning?

• Why did the people of the town not clean up their own mess?

• What did the elephant nally do with the bike?

• Why did this make him feel better?

Children’s Activity Although the story focuses on the elephant’s dream of owning a bicycle and what happens when things don’t go as planned for him, the underlying story emphasizes what can happen when just one person in the town cleans it and the consequences of having too much rubbish when he stops. This is a good opportunity to explore how the children’s local environment is looked after with regard to litter and to highlight that they have a part to play in keeping their local area clean and tidy.

Areas for investigation • Find out what happens to our own rubbish in the local area.

• How do we recycle in our school?

A useful teacher resource site which encourages children to reuse and recycle can be found at: http://www.recyclenow.com/recycle/school/primary-schoolresources/busta • Children’s Task Ask the children to create a poster campaign encouraging people around the school to pick up their own litter and to recycle more.

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Activity 2 – Introduction to Animation Re-visit the trailer, and investigate with the children how the animator designed and made the characters. Ask the children what the animator used to create the characters and how they think the characters were made to move?

The animation in the film is created using a cut out animation style.

Cut-outs are laid on top of drawings; the cut outs are then positioned and filmed before being moved ever so slightly and filmed again. Other examples of cut-out animation can be found here: http://www.movingimageeducation.org/create/production/animatio n/types/cutout

Children’s Activity

Discuss which parts of the characters move i.e. on the elephant.

Although his head, arms and legs move, his trunk and eyes have the most movement and are used to display his emotions. The children can create their own simple character (animals may be simpler than humans) using cut out pieces of paper.

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Follow up work In this cut-out animation, parts of the face are swapped to create facial expressions showing an emotion such as sadness. Can the children identify different emotions and show them on their own faces? Can they complete the faces to show different emotions just using eyes and a mouth?

Drama activities – exploring emotions Ask a child to pick a random emotion from the word list out of a bag, then ask them to mime the emotion. Choose someone to show their mime to the rest of the class.

• After the drama activity, what did they do with their bodies and faces to show the feeling?

Ask the children to sit opposite a partner and, taking turns, the children show a specific emotion to their partner. Ask the children to share their observations with the rest of the class by describing what happened to their partners face. Ask them to look carefully at what happens to their eyes and mouth. • Discuss how the shape of our eyes, eyebrows and mouth change when we show different emotions.

Follow-up task Give the children the blank sheet of blank faces and ask them to draw in the emotions on these face using just eyes and a mouth.

Using simple features to create emotions

Suggested emotions for drama activities Happy

Sad

Shy

Angry

Afraid

Lonely

Mad

Jealous

Nervous

Scared

Glad

Grumpy

Embarrassed

Frightened

Worried

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Excited

Surprised Tired

Bored Shocked

Draw a face using just eyes and mouth to show what your character is feeling.

Happy

Embarrassed

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Sad

Surprised

Worried

Afraid

Forest Guards (Meža Sargi) Director: Măris Brinkmanis Latvia 2015 12 min Animation Presented with the support of the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia

SYNOPSIS In this new short film from the creators of Little Ruddy and Hedgehogs and the City (WFF 2015), forest guards deal with people who leave litter in their forest.

During a walk the Forester finds a pile of garbage discarded in the woods. His pets a dog, a cat and a mouse are angry. Next time, the Forester sees that a citizen is polluting the forest. However, nothing can be done! The villain just laughs and continues his mischief.

The dog, cat and mouse join together with the forest animals to teach the citizen a lesson.

The Moon and I Director: Nancy Biniadaki Germany 2015 8 min.

Live Action/Narrative Grimme Award Nominee 2016 Presented with the support of the Department of German. Special thanks to production firm Wolkenlenker (Wombo, WFF 2015).

SYNOPSIS A little boy is having trouble falling asleep. And no wonder, there's something big and bright and round in his bedroom that looks surprisingly like the moon! Let's go catch it.

Little Rice Ball (Konigiri-kun) Director: Mari Miyazawa Japan 2015 5 min.

Animation Audience Award Children's Film Festival Seattle 2016 Presented with the support of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature.

SYNOPSIS Mari Miyazawa's (Twins in Bakery, Decorations, both WFF 2015) sushi animation brings to life the adventures of a rice ball kid and his pet broccoli.

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Full Length Feature: Grades 4 and 5

Oddball Director: Stuart McDonald Australia 2015 95 min.

Live Action/Narrative

SYNOPSIS Off the coast of small town Warrnambool lies Middle Island, a sanctuary once home to thousands of the world's smallest penguins. But since foxes learned to cross the shallow channel to the island, penguin numbers have plunged. If they fall below ten, park ranger Emily Marsh will be out of a job and have to move away. This shocks her father, eccentric chicken farmer Swampy Marsh who does not want to see his daughter and granddaughter Olivia leave. The solution comes when Swampy rescues an injured penguin from the island and discovers to his amazement that Oddball, his furball dog, seems to be an expert at guarding penguins. With two weeks until the final penguin

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count, Swampy and Olivia devise a crazy plan - train the rambunctious and unpredictable Oddball to protect the penguins and save the sanctuary, while somehow keeping the operation a secret from everyone. Based on a real-life event. "Top choice for the family... cleverly-crafted" (Lee Paatsch, Herald Sun Australia). This film is recommended for ages 6 to adult.

Presented with the support of the Henry Vilas Zoo

Trailer, Information and Activity Book Download available on the Oddball website: http://oddballthemovie.com.au/

Penguins in Madison The Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison has a great community of African penguins. They are not the same species as the Little Penguins in the movie, but both are non-Antarctic penguins!

The next page gives you some information about the Vilas Zoo African penguins. This info is also on the Vilas Zoo website at http://vilaszoo.org/animals.

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