I’m a fan of Aardman animations. I’ve been a huge fan of animation in general for as long as I can remember, but it peaked half a lifetime ago when I was fortunate enough to have Peter Lord as one of my visiting mentors on an animation project I was working on while I was studying at the RCA. I was inspired beyond belief by the creator of Morph no less and have ever since been hugely grateful for his, and my other mentor’s input. SO, it was with no small amount of enthusiasm that I greeted the news of the launch of Aardman’s latest collaborative project. The Tate Movie Project.
Tate, Aardman Animations, Fallon, and the BBC have all joined forces on this new film project that they hope will involve the participation of one million UK school kids… The aim of the Tate Movie Project is to create a 20-minute film, which is made up entirely of contributions from children, from the initial storyline ideas, to the characters featured, to the soundtrack. Right now, the team is inviting contributions to the project from kids. It’s an open invite to get involved and it’s quite an opportunity! Children can upload their ideas, drawings, animations and even sound effects here at the heart of the project, tatemovie.co.uk plus there will also be opportunity to take part via The Tate Movie Project truck, which takes to the road this weekend on a national three month tour of production workshops. The truck will travel to 55 locations across the UK. It will visit primary schools, family events and festivals and will tour to every region of the UK.
There has been some controversy about the project, and doubts as to whether film making by collaboration can ever be successful, as was summarized by Andrew Pulver in the Gaurdian, however what we mustn’t forget is that this project will be fueled by the enthusiasm and ambitions of the UK’s children. There’s nothing like it and the power of it shouldn’t be underestimated. My own children are proof of the pudding. They’ve signed up and have been prolific already in their ideas and art works, so I can’t begin to imagine this project failing. It’s going to be simply extraordinary and fantastic and I will be urging all the children I teach in my workshops to get involved.
Just a small selection of my children's entries so far uploaded to the Project Website.
