End of Week 2: Afternoon Ducks & Late-Night Donuts

It’s already been another week here at Tiny Circus! We started week two with three new members in the community, but in the past two days we’ve welcomed another four--- three ducks, one person. Yesterday afternoon, in the midst of our exceptionally focused animating and sound-editing, we watched as Turtle, Enya, and No. 3 crawled their way from their dark shells into the light and love of Circus.

Their arrival could not have been more timely. This week’s animation explores some of the complications of age and aging. We do this through collected interviews from the Grinnell community, and short animations of animal kingdom milestones. Watching the ducks hatch added both a more tangible and more magical element to our project.

Because of the ever-changing roster of this year’s summer session, we have been spending only one week on each animation. The compressed timeline is exhilarating. Some of our members have observed that this lifestyle is something lik

e a cross between a music festival and finals week. 

Last night (or this morning?) we all worked hard until midnight. After checking in on audio and visual progress, we decided that a) some people needed to sleep b) some people needed to animate, and c) some people needed to go get donuts for the animators (there is a Grinnell tradition of 2 am “bakery runs” to the local bakery in town). The donuts (and espresso) did their job, and the animators finished another scene at 3:30 am this morning. 

Tonight will be our second potluck-screening-dance party of the summer session. Tomorrow, a few more members will leave town, and those staying at Circus will spend the next week planning the Tiny Circus event for the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI).