Rebellion in the ranks…
Joe stood in the hallway outside the classroom
with the Bowling Ball Group—four fourth-graders vibrating with purpose. Their dialogue sheet fluttered in the air-conditioned breeze, a boarding pass to Youtube.
“Okay,” Joe said, “this should be fun—but we don’t have much time. Watch how I do the first recording. Once you see how it works, you’ll take over. Then I have to pop back in and help the Turtle Group with their slow-motion scene. They’re still moving at actual turtle speed.”
The children laughed politely; they weren’t sure if it was a joke.
“We’re working in iMovie,” Joe went on. “I’ve imported your first four scenes. We’ll add the rest later. That’s enough to start with sound effects and dialogue.”
A hand shot up. “Can I be the bowling ball?”
“No way—I’m doing it,” said another.
“Who says you get it? Your head looks like a bowling ball.”
“Okay, new rule. You can all be the bowling ball.” Joe exclaims.
That stopped them.
“You look different,” he explained, “but this is animation. Your audience won’t know who’s talking. At your age your voices all live in the same register. Later, you’ll sound like Darth Vader or the Chipmunks, but for now, sameness is our superpower.”
Daquan frowned. “No way. I don’t sound like Maria.”
Maria folded her arms. “What’s wrong with my voice?”
Joe smiled. “Nothing at all. And if we did want to change it, we could pitch-shift it later in the app. Lower, higher, whatever we need. But the one thing we can’t fix later is authenticity.”
Maria squinted. “What’s that mean?”
“It's a five dollar word for Acting,” Joe said. “Being real while pretending.”
Blank faces.
“Don't worry. Acting is natural with you all, there's an old phrase that the term ‘child actor’ is redundant.”
More blank stares.
“What’s re-dumb-dent?” Daquan asked.
Maria groaned. “It means you’re dumb.”
Joe laughed. “No, redundant means saying the same thing twice. Calling someone a ‘child actor’ is like saying ‘wet water.’ It means all kids are actors by nature.”
“So you’re calling us children?” Daquan said. “Then you’re an old-man, grandpa.”
“Guilty,” Joe said. “But a wise one. Back to authenticity—”
Maria interrupted. “Why’s that word worth five dollars?”
Joe looked out the hallway window, as though the answer might be written on a cloud.
“Because it is a word that's used in college a lot and college is expensive so...” Joe half laughs to himself remember how long it took to pay off college loans.
He tried again. “Authentic acting is the difference between just reading words verses really feeling them. The audience can tell when you’re half-trying.”
Daquan shrugged. “So, like… crying for real?”
Joe grinned. “Exactly! If the line’s sad, I want to hear your tears.”
A boy in the back whispered, “You can hear tears?”
Joe nodded gravely. “Only if you’ve lived long enough.”
They stared. Adults are confusing creatures.
Then Maria asks, “So why not just say 'acting' or 'pretending' instead of authentic?”
Joe leaned on the wall, thinking. “It's also used outside acting. It means it’s yours. Real. Honest. Not fake.”
“Like when I draw my own character?”
“Exactly. Your voice should be only something you could have made, like it's yours, like you own it.”
The group nodded, half-understanding.
To keep the momentum, Joe clapped his hands. “Scene Three: the bowling ball says, ‘I’ll never knock down those pins.’ Who wants to try?”
All hands go up.
"Let's do this one at a time!" Joe insists. "I'll copy and paste our lip flapping animation for each of your voices here on the iPad."
For five minutes the hallway turns into a studio circus: bashful takes, booming takes, one that sounded suspiciously like SpongeBob SquarePants. Sure enough their uninhibited voices bring the character to life very differently.
Joe records each, splices them into iMovie under the animation of the bowling ball. The kids had seen the Animation Chefs demonstrated this earlier, but it was fun to see it applied to their own character.
When Joe massages each voice under the bowling ball animation, the kids huddle around the iPad while the four bowling ball clips speak in sequence.
Laughter explodes. The kids are beside themselves with astonishment.
“Again! Again! Again!”
They couldn't get enough. By the fourth replay, they seem to react most decidedly to Maria’s version..
“Why do you gravitate towards Maria's take?” Joe asked.
Daquan thought. “Because it sounded like she was crying. When she said it into the iPad, it didn’t seem sad. But when it came out of the bowling ball's mouth in the animation, it felt real. It was the bowling ball”
Joe nodded. “That’s authenticity, the moment pretend becomes true enough to move someone, to hit their feels right here.”
Joe thumps his sternum.
Maria cocked her head. “So…graviatape is good?”
“So far you're going to slay them.” Joe glows.
"It's not redumbdent" Dayquon blurts.
"Precisely!" Joe smirks. "Oh woops. We are out of time. Time flys when you're having authenticity! At least we've got one of the most emotional scenes in the can."
"What's 'in the can'?"
"Done. Finished. They used to put films in canisters and..." Joe's voice trails off.
"What does graviatae mean again?" Dayquon asks. "Like gravity?”
“Exactly! That's the root word. It means you all were drawn to it—pulled toward it—because it felt real.”
Daquan raised a skeptical eyebrow. “So we’re like the moon?”
“Yes,” Joe said, delighted. “You’re emotional satellites. You orbit truth when you hear it.”
That line might have been too poetic for the hallway.
Maria whispered, “I think he needs lunch.”
Joe laughed. “You’re not wrong.”
He looked at the group, these miniature filmmakers who didn’t yet know how good they were. “Here’s the thing,” he said softly. “When you do this right, your voice becomes more than sound. It becomes emotion someone else can feel. That’s how movies work. They pull at you. They make your soul gravitate toward something true.”
Maria quips, “So if we keep being authentic, and not redumbdant, we’ll make gravity?”
“Exactly! You’re geniuses. Remember that sentence. You can use it when you win your first Oscar.”
Daquan grinned. “I’m putting that on merch: Gravititate Authentic Redumbdance. GAR!"
"I'll buy the first mug" Joe quips.
They stepped back in the classroom, still quoting the line and arguing about who owned the trademark.
Back inside, Joe gets the class's attention, holds up the iPad, and hits play for all to see.
Maria’s voice echoed through the room as the sad bowling ball.
Every time a team hears their own voice come alive inside an animated character, something fundamental shifts. It's kinda of a Frankenstein moment. They were the ones who invented: the line, the idea, the character, the cut-out, the animation, and voiced. Yet when it plays on a screen, they scream "It's alive!" as if it lived apart from all their efforts. As if they had nothing to do with it's creation.
They realize their imagination is not pretend any more; it’s performing!
The class breaks out in applause.
Each group is just as excited for the other groups as they are for themselves as the bring these stories to life.
"I never want you to forget these moments. Look around at all the media you watch. Now you know it takes work, trial and error, and emotion, and a plan." Joe pauses. "Next time you see a pre-roll ad on Youtube, imagine what that team had to go through to get that ad into your eyeballs."
"But their stuff looks so much better than ours." hollers a voice from the back.
"They are paid the big bucks. But they are using the same process you do. Now you know how much work it takes."
"I am so proud of these students Joe", offers the teacher. "I can't believe they are becoming the "content creators" they've yearned to become, right here in my class."
Joe waves to the teacher as he slips out of the room. He is beaming. She is beaming.
The kids crowd back around the iPad. "Play it Again! Again! Again!"
Joe Animates With Kids. The Kids Are Animated1 Animating Kids indeed.
More Testimonials:
"I am impressed by...these programs, providing young people with the skills to become creative and critical thinkers...this shares my dedication to nurturing the next generation of filmmakers and visual storytellers."— Steven Spielberg - Referencing the work of Joe Summerhays“
"Joe (Animating Kids Founder) has turned the art of movie making for kids into a science.” — Jonathan Demme - Academy Award-Winning Director
“I absolutely love Animating Kids...you have no idea how amazing it is for a span of K-9. I’ve got the whole building covered and my planning was done for me. The kids LOVE the Animation Chefs. Win, win!!”— J. Tuttle - Media Specialist
"When I found Animating Kids it changed everything. Small and not so small humans became masters of sound and motion on any subject via small group PBL dynamics."— Rachel - Tech Coach - Quebec
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"This is the most important skills-based content for today’s kids. I don't think primary educators get how impactful this approach can be. It respects media content creation as the basic literacy it is for today’s kids. — Monique - White Plains NY
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"My head was spinning. It involved: math, writing, science, team building, art, language arts, engineering, improvisation, innovation, acting, etc. Along with another dozen areas I can’t recall. Sneaky comprehensive. Mind blown. Can’t wait to use it in class.” — Marcia - 4th Grade Teacher
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