On Monday 24th and Tuesday 25th October, Global Ocean teamed up with Transition Primrose Hill to host a free animation workshop for teenagers at the Camden Roundhouse. The event took place during the half-term holidays in Primrose Hill and much like our other eco-arts workshops, the project was aimed at educating the youngsters on the impact of plastic on marine life.
With the aid of local artist and animator Lynne Pritchard, day one started with the teens watching part of the documentary ‘Message in the Waves.’ After the film, the students storyboarded their own animations and planned what sea creatures to include in their own films. The remainder of the day saw the students exhibiting tremendous creativity when using a variety of plastic materials to make their own marine-organism puppets. By the end of the day the room was filled with angelfish, sharks, whales, seaweed and delightful seahorses ready for animation! In the second day of the workshop, Lynne taught the group how to turn their creations into vibrant animation sequences, along with informative narrative voiceovers.
The creatures from Monday’s workshop will form part of the ‘Camden Aquarium,’ an art installation which will be on display throughout the borough. Not only that, these high quality video clips will soon be edited and featured as part of our campaign on the Global Ocean Website.
Overall the workshop was a success as the students were very forthcoming and enthusiastic about the project. The teens even contributed excellent analogies to the discussions, for instance how to convert statistics of plastics into visual aids... such as 75 million tonnes of rubbish being converted into " x " amount of London buses. With such ideas springing around the room, it was clear that the children were able to engage with the problem of plastics in the oceans and were formulating their own methods of communicating the message to others.
Keep an eye on the website for information about future eco-arts workshops hosted by Global Ocean and Transition Primrose Hill!
