This is a true story.
When Joe walks in, the energy is off the charts. Groups of potential filmmakers buzz with excitement, freshly gathered into their creative teams.
Joe steps to the front of the classroom.
"Okay, before we take time to finish up full-color illustrations of your storyboard scenes…" He turns and writes on the board.
"Four things are happening simultaneously in this stage of the process:"
Pre-Production – Character design, color design, set design, prop design, costume design, etc.
Cinematography – Long Shots, Medium Shots, and Close-Ups mapped out using the guides from last time.
Oral Presentation – Sharing your story as a team. Each student will describe at least two scenes verbally, holding up the picture as they explain.
Test Audience – There will be a Q&A. If our audience is confused about how the story works, we need to know now, not after we’ve spent time animating it.
"Got it?" Joe asks.
The eager students nod as they pull out their folders of semi-completed scenes.
"Oh—and let me clarify one very important thing," Joe continues.
"When we get to the Q&A, we are only looking for things that are confusing about the story. This is not a time to critique artwork, presentation styles, or dialogue.” Joe pauses to let this sink in.
“We’re only asking: does this story make basic sense? Does it have a beginning, middle, and end? Are there opportunities to make it more fun, or scary or whatever.”
Joe continues, “Our story might make sense to our group, after all we were there when we thought of it. But does it work for strangers seeing it for the first time? That’s what we’re going to find out as we go through our oral presentations with these very cool drawings you are producing."
He claps his hands.
"Okay, finish those drawings and assign scenes to each group member. No one person presents everything for the group. This is a team sport. Everyone owns at least a scene or two!"
Joe wanders and pitches in as the young media moguls finish up the full color scenes. Then Joe positions himself at the back of the classroom when everybody is finished.
"I'm back here to make sure I can hear you loud and clear—even sitting way back here behind the class clowns!" he teases.
“Lost Turtle/Mommy group, let’s have you go first.”
The first group nervously steps to the front of their peers.
"Let’s warm up those voices. Ever seen a tech crew do a mic test? They say ‘1, 2, 3, testing, testing…’ We don’t have a mic, but I’ll say ‘1, 2, 3…’ and you’ll say ‘TESTING!’ in your loudest presentation voice. Ready?"
Joe calls out, “1, 2, 3—”
The gruop up front screams, “TESTING!”—a little too loud and a lot screechy. They burst into laughter.
"If there were Oscars for screaming stories, you'd win!" Joe says, fingers in ears.
"Let’s try that again, same energy, just tone it way down. One more time. 1, 2, 3—"
“Testing!” the group bellows—this time loud, clear, and controlled.
"Perfect! Now hold up your beautiful drawings way over your head so all of us in the back can see. No hiding your face behind your drawings! Deliver your story with confidence, volume and enthusiasm on your face!. "Drumroll, please."
The class drums their desks with lightly tapping fingers.
"Lights… camera… action!"
(Each group gets the same routine: A volume check, Joe’s mock-director call, a fun warm-up, and a playful tone that keeps things creative and informal.)
The presentation takes about 5 minutes. The group looks relieved, but still have concern on their visages as they await questions about their story from the test audience.
"Thank you, Turtle/Mommy Group! Remember their original idea? A turtle lost in a snowstorm calling for its mommy. Now that we’ve seen their storyboard in living color—I think I speak for the whole class—it was amazing."
Joe stands and walks up to the front and asks the presenters to hold up their drawings.
"I’ll give you my summary as I understand your story first and then we’ll open it up to questions.
We open the movie with Scene One — Long Shot of a turtle, our hero, slogging through a snowstorm.
Then, Scene Two — Medium Shot . The turtle fills the frame, leaning into the wind. It calls out, ‘Mommy, Mommy!’ as it trudges on."
"In Scene Three , a Close-Up of the turtle’s face—worried brows, pouty mouth, eyes squinting in the snow. We feel every bit of that anxiety."
Joe pauses.
"This is a grabber. Everyone has called for mommy at some point in their life. It’s a primal, human instinct. You’ve got the audience’s attention on a deep level by Scene Three."
He continues:
"Then, Scene Four—Long Shot—danger! Our hero is about to walk off a cliff. It can’t see—snow’s in its eyes.
"But wait—there’s hope! In Scene Five— Long Shot, we see the mommy turtle down below, a little ways from the foot of the cliff.. She hears the call!
Then, Scene Six — Long Shot , the mom runs to the cliff, calling back, ‘I’m here! I’m down here!’ Just as… our hero walks off the edge."
"Now," Scene Seven—Medium Shot - the camera follows the small turtle through the air until it hits the ground, and good news! Instead of hitting hard ground, the turtle crashes through ice! The ground below the cliff is ice. Turns out mom was walking on a freezing sheet of on top of a lake."
"Then, Scene Eight—Medium Shot, mom sees her child fall through the ice, runs and dives into the hole."
"In" Scene Nine--Medium Shot ", we see the hole in the ice for a moment, and then , splash, she pushes her child up onto the ice - to safety. Then her child runs back over to the hole where mom is.
"And finally," Scene Ten — Close-Up - they hug. The turtle kisses mom as she treads water in the hole, smiling in relief."
"How’d I do?" Joe asks.
The group gives him a big thumbs up.
"Makes sense to me. Any questions for our fearless storytellers? Anyone?"
A student raises a hand.
"How did the mom and turtle get separated?"
Joe lets the question linger.
Silence.
"Anyone up front in the group want to answer?"
"We tried to put that in with the stick-figure storyboard, but we ran out of scenes. We had to cut the backstory."
"A ten-scene limit forces hard choices," Joe nods. "I kind of like the mystery of how they got separated—it kept me paying attention. Still… maybe you could swap in a scene and include the backstory? Maybe not? Make a note of that."
"Alright, another question?"
A quiet voice from the front row:
"How does the mom get out of the ice?"
Joe leans in. "So she is concerned about mom, she seems stuck in the ice!"
"Well… the mom’ is huge. The kid is tiny. The kid can’t pull her out. Is he just going to leave her to drown?” she observes. She hesitates and continues with a softer voice, “Our dog fell through ice on a lake last year. It was a poodle, but if it were a Great Dane, we would have not even tried cause we might have fallen in as well."
"Didn't think of that," Joe empathizes. "Anyone else have a comment on something confusing?"
"It's just a cartoon, regular physics don't apply," offers one problem solver.
"Did you save your dog?" asks a voice from the back.
"No. We had to crawl out with branches to try to save it, but It drowned before before we could pull it out."
The hard truth emerges.
"It is no joke to get a dog out of holes in the ice." she adds.
The class sits stunned. Nobody wants to follow up with anything that would hurt her feelings.
"That's so sad." says the teacher looking up from her monitor. She’d been half listening as she was grading essays.
"We’re so sorry for your loss," Joe says. "That’s tragic.Heartbreaking! Does anyone have ideas for how we might get mom out of the ice?"
Kids throw out wild solutions—cranes, ropes, superheroes.
Then someone offers, "What if… the mom doesdie and her spirit goes to Turtle Heaven? She can become her kid’s spirit guide for life."
Gasps ripple through the room.
Silence.
"Oh, wow, that would be so..." another voice whispers.
The student who lost her dog lets out a half sigh under her breath. Later we find she has had a sense that her dog was near many time since the accident.
A brave student breaks the silence. "So let mom pass. We can make this movie as a way of honoring her dog, only it's about a turtle, so nobody knows but us."
The class warms to this idea through many non-verbal gestures.
Joe steps in.
“Wow. Are you guys up for that?” he asks. Then an idea strikes him, "Give me a minute. I’m going to find someone who hasn’t seen this story or been part of this discussion. When I get back in a minute or two, re-present the whole story only with this new Heaven ending - just using your voices—since we haven't done the drawings yet."
Joe steps out of the room, while the presenting group thinks of how they are going to present the new ending.
Joe returns with the janitor and a guidance counselor.
"Okay, class: fresh eyes. These fine victims- er-a-volunteers were on their way to the faculty lounge for lunch, but they agreed to free up three minutes." Joe turns to the two visitors. "Just need gut reactions to a story we might turn into a film. Your attention on the group in the front of the room please! Lights… camera… action!"
The group rehearses Scenes 1-7, then improvising, share Scenes 8-10, “Scene Eight - Medium Shot - As she pushes her kid out of the water, the little turtle is gasping and coughing and trying not to flip over on it's back. It doesn't see mom sinking back down into the ice hole and not coming back up. The kid recovers and stands by the edge of the hole calling for it's mom. Scene Nine - Medium Shot maybe, the mom's spirit slowly floats out of the hole in the ice, looks at her child and says, 'I’ll always be with you.' Scene Ten - Long Shot - Mom arrives in turtle heaven with all her ancient turtle family there to greet her. The End.”
Applause from the class. Then everyone turns to the visitors.
After what seems like an eternity, the janitor offers, "That’s brutal! Oh man… I had a pet turtle once. Buried him in a shoebox in the backyard. It’s still there. I haven’t thought about that little guy in years."
All eyes turn to the counselor. She's just snagged a tissue out of the box on the teachers desk. She starts to speak, but emotion chokes her voice. Her eyes fill with tears...
Joe interjects, "Before you share your thoughts, these kids think of this as "just a cartoon". The counselor and janitor smile at such naïveté. Focusing on the counselor, Joe continues, "Can you tell us why this simple “cartoon” has moved you?"
To be continued…
Note to Reader:
This post is finally getting at the beating heart of the Animating Kids process: empowering students to work as groups tp develop deep buy-in as they create stories. This isn’t just about content with sound and motion. The adult in the room is constantly directing the discussion about the meaning of each movie idea and the inherent logic of the plot, tactfully steering kids away from criticism. When story is firmly lodged in their DNA, they develop esprit-de-corps as a group and as a class. They can't await to make something special. In fact, as they begin to learn how to bring their ideas to life via stop motion animation, this story unfolds in ways that are light years beyond their expectations.
Bon Animate!
Joe