school film animation project ‘Rabbit and Worm’ Cornwall, South West England, UK

The fight that didn ’t go right

Laura Hardman, independent filmmaker and Director of the 2004 Cornwall Film Festival, talks about a school film animation project with a difference.

The world ’s first Cornish language animation premiered at the 2004 Cornwall Film Festival, and went down a storm. Year six pupils at St Stephens Churchtown CP School created ‘The Fight that Didn’t Go Right’ as an offshoot of another animation, ‘Rabbit and Worm’.

The project all began at the 2003 Cornwall Film Festival, where an idea was created and (unsuccessfully) pitched for a children ’s animation in Cornish. Since then, with supportand advice, and added backing from the Calouste Gulbenkian foundation, Cornwall County Council and Creative Partnerships, ‘Rabbit and Worm ’ will this year become a reality.

Written by Jack Morrison, the animation ’s aim is to introduce basic Cornish to pre-school children whilst also creating a quirky cartoon that also appeals to adults. This led us to St Stephens Churchtown CP School and Viv Dance ’s year six class. A team comprising myself as director, along with Cornish language poet Pol Hodge and musician Phil Innes, worked with the class o­n all aspects o­n creating an animation for themselves.

The pupils ’ brief was simply to tell a story, and they succeed in creating a wonderfully bizarre and clever tale. As fast as they invented unusual characters (a boxing rooster, a hippy flamingo and a levitating potato) Pol would translate these and soon the whole class could sing in Cornish. Working with Phil, they also wrote and recorded short radio plays, creating all the sound effects and voices. It was no trouble then for them when they came to voice the soundtrack for the video! The animation itself was stop-frame, and all created and filmed by the pupils in the classroom -with 2-dimensional characters and some great landscapes (look out for erratic clouds and weird fish trying to upstage the main action!).

As a finale to the project, the whole class visited the professional Troubador Studios in Falmouth to record the actual soundtrack for Rabbit and Worm! All the pupils remembered how to count in Cornish and gave a fantastic performance as a swarm of bees. Josh McNelly and Jenna Rowe were chosen to play the rabbit and the worm, and recorded their dialogue in Cornish like seasoned professionals. It was a great opportunity to mix three art forms with such imaginative and creative pupils, and the project forged links not just between the artists and the school, but also between the children and the future of ‘Rabbit and Worm ’.