ABOUT TALES FROM BRIDGEVIEW
In 2005-2006, the National Film Board partnered with Action for Neighborhood Change (ANC) to help youth in five communities across Canada tell their stories. The objective was to provide a voice for the neighborhoods with storytelling skills and technology.
In Surrey, British Columbia, seven creative and adventuresome students from Bridgeview Elementary School explored digital storytelling with Nettie Wild, one of Canada's leading filmmakers. Nettie is the Director of award winning documentaries - FIX: The Story of an Addicted City, A Place Called Chiapas, Blockade and A Rustling of Leaves: Inside the Philippine Revolution.
Every Saturday for ten weeks, Nettie and a team of mentor/editors worked with the young directors to develop the students' personal stories and help them edit their own productions on cutting edge computer technology. The directors, ranging in age from 9 - 13, animated their stories with original artwork, photographs and video. The result? Five strikingly different tales of friendship, hamsters, dragons, addiction to fashion and skateboarding dreams.
This project was an initiative of the National Film Board of Canada -- Pacific and Yukon Centre together with the Action for Neighbourhood Change (ANC). Our partners within ANC include: United Way of Canada-Centraide Canada, Tamarack: An Institute for Community Engagement, Caledon Institute of Social Policy, National Film Board and The Government of Canada.
Building Story
While every four hour workshop included time to learn skills on the computers, the first three sessions focused on developing the basic elements of storytelling.
Participants were asked to write a first-person narrative taken from their own experience. The stories were limited to 350 words. This provided the basis for a workable two minute script that could be successfully produced within our ten workshops.
The storytelling sessions started with games which led to animated group discussions about the basics of story telling -- how to find your story's beginning, middle and end while developing character and conflict. Sometimes the games helped a shy director find his or her story in the first place.
These building blocks of storytelling were woven into every phase of production from first draft, narration recording, and capturing of images to editing and post production.
Building Images
The young directors were 'hands on' working with the technology. Focus was placed on animating original drawings and photography with a minimum use of live action video. A portable recording studio was assembled for recording narration and a camera studio for capturing images. Each project was assigned a mentor/editor and one Mac mini computer. Technical Director Lisa Nielsen gave instruction in digital still composition and lighting plus computer tutorials featuring two software programs: Photoshop Elements and Final Cut Express (for the editing of sound, picture and special effects.)
The job of the mentor/editors was to answer creative or technical questions to help the young director achieve his or her vision. The happy task of these directors was to illustrate, shoot, capture and edit all of their own work.
The Premiere
At the World Premiere of Tales From Bridgeview, on April 8th 2006, we screened the digital stories twice in one night to packed houses! Awards were handed out celebrating exceptional skills: Best Original Artwork, Danel Awayan for Hamsters; Best Action Story, The-Kiet Tran and Jason Vi for Field Lost; Best Screenplay, Joel Swankhuizen for My World; Best Photography, Monsoon Sondhi for Makeup Trash and Best Use of Mixed-Media, Jacqueline Andre and Sheri Lewis for Bridgeview's Dream.
The Project Vision
We look forward to continuing to partner with the Action for Neighbourhood Change to bring further workshops to Bridgeview. The National Film Board is committed to the exciting and newfound relationship with Bridgeview Elementary School as a community partner. In this spirit the National Film Board is currently planning a Fall 2006 workshop with Bridgeview Elementary.
