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Once Upon a Time - Shadow Puppet Film from Blackrock Animation festival 2013 | StoryLab for film research
2014-01-06

Once Upon a Time - Shadow Puppet Film from Blackrock Animation festival 2013

Description

A short film using shadow puppetry and overhead projections created during a two and a half hour workshop at Blackrock Animation Festival with help from The Southside Partnership. Facilitated by Niamh Lawlor of Púca Puppets, created by teenagers / young adults : Rachel, Sadhbh, Olga, Joshua, Roisín, Elizabeth, Christiane and Janina.

This proved too short workshop for the broad range of ages and experiences of the participants - originally it was designed for 12- 15 year olds but ended up being with 10 years to middle aged participants. We could have spent a week on it, so the process was accelerated and yet the participants threw themselves into it and voted to run over time a little to complete the film.

In order to assist the storymaking process we brainstormed themes as a group on a flip chart and voted for our focus. Then after further brainstorming around Character, Settings, and Actions associated with the chosen theme, each participant chose a character or setting and using the Action brainstorms we then made interconnections between each choice thus creating the story. As a group we created then, a very rough storyline which was developed a little in improvisation and filming after each had undertaken the making of their chosen piece. We all worked around a large table which facilitated agreement on scale, design details etc.