University of Missouri Student Reflects on Ghost Trap

We're excited to introduce a new feature to our blog: posts by participants and observers of Tiny Circus in action. This week, Sam Jonesi, a student in Joanna Hearne's History of Animation class at the University of Missouri spent the morning at EEE School when we were in the midst of creating Ghost Trap with the 4th and 5th grade students. We spoke with Sam and his classmates about Tiny Circus when we arrived in Columbia, and they've been joining us at EEE School, participating in all the moving pieces of the animation process.

Here, Sam writes a wonderfully descriptive account of the experience:

Sometime the week before, I had been assured that simply by being in my History of Animation class the particular day Tiny Circus was presenting, that I was automatically a member of Tiny Circus. I didn’t feel that way. I was not hoping to go into film school, like many of the other members of my class. I was just a computer science student who needed a humanity and liked cartoons.  Still, I was looking forward to getting to be a part of the process of animation. I knew it was a tedious process, but I had no idea until I got to see it in action. Two whole classrooms of students were split into four groups. Each group would then go to a station and work on a task related to animation there, switching every thirty minutes or so.

EEE Students set-up animation stations to shoot Ghost Trap!

One group had chalkboard animation with Carlos. One student would be in charge of taking pictures using a laptop while the others would each be assigned to a bee. It would be the other students’ job to move the bee the tiniest bit. The student taking the picture would say “SHOOTING!"   The camera would make a “boop” sound, and then the student would say “GOT IT!” This was done at a rapid-fire pace, with students getting up and down quickly to get out of the way of the shot.

The students at the non-chalkboard animation station had to move more slowly and deliberately. They did their animation on what is essentially a table with a camera and lights on the top of it. The camera on this contraption was also controlled by a laptop. Each student was assigned a star, and had to move it a small amount. I participated in this process for a small bit, and found it quite tedious, and soon had to move on to something else. I later found out that using this method, it took fifteen minutes to create all of three seconds of animation. I find it amazing that Tiny Circus could hold on to the attention of so many children for so long, and have them collaborate to make something original. Judging by the animation of theirs that I have seen, they are quite good at this.

Animating the night sky

Another station involved making the construction-paper figures actually used in the animation. This is where the other MU student who assisted with Tiny Circus, Paige, spent most of her time. Today, the children at this station made soccer goals, soccer balls, soccer players, a bear, and a parachute (it all makes sense when you actually watch the animation).

The last station was sound. Here students were encouraged to make their own sound effects for the animation using whatever materials they could find in the room they were in, though they mostly used their own bodies and voices to create sound. I learned about this often-forgotten part of filmmaking, such as the idea that it’s best to have a three-second pause between sound effects to make them easier to separate for the sound editor.

A group of students record sound effects for a chase scene

Even though I barely participated directly in the process of animation, I still had a lot of fun watching. I could tell that animation is hard, tedious work, but getting to see the characters you’ve made all by yourself actually move I think would be worth it. I learned a lot that day, and I really did feel like a part of Tiny Circus.

Citizen Bumper

The Citizen Jane Film Festival comes once a year, and the Tiny Circus spends the rest of the year looking forward to it.

We left Circus House in home-base Grinnell at 6 AM to arrive in time for our first engagement, beginning a nine-day stretch of animating and collaborating. By noon that day, we were in Columbia, Missouri, in the classroom of Joanna Hearne, a professor at MU. We spoke with 20 of her students for an hour or so, detailing our plan to collaborate with 300 elementary-school students over the next week. The class, History of Animation, is assisting our team on a daily basis.

Two hours later, we went to the EEE school, site of our workshop, to move our boxes and cameras up three flights of stairs. Then later that evening, we shared dinner, beers and a campfire with our hosts.

Before the workshop with the EEE school, Tiny Circus had two intense days of animating with Stephens College students to brainstorm and make an animated bumper (a short introductory logo) for the film festival. The festival conveniently has a circus theme and so our aesthetic fit perfectly. We worked with about 12-15 people over the two-day period and then handed off the resulting animation to Paula and Kerri, the festival directors.

 

Here we are brainstorming the storyboard. As often happens with animation brainstorms, we had a lot of ambitious ideas that we continued to revise - and simplify - as the day went on.

 

Making the Citizen Jane unicyclist. She had movable arms and legs and her wheel is a film reel.

 

 Animating in the dark inspired a quiet and focused atmosphere.

We wrote the music and recorded sound effects - old squeaky chairs, lockers opening and closing, fabric falling, an old film projector - all found in our midst at Stephens College.

In the end a true collaboration and an elegant short that pays homage to the circus theme of this year's Citizen Jane: Cirque du Cinema! Check it out on the Tiny Circus Facebook page.

Look for our blog post next week about the EEE workshop hours of animating fun with 300 students!

HUB-BUB in Spartanburg, South Carolina

Tiny Circus, rolling on... landed at HUB-BUB in Spartanburg, South Carolina, after driving from our lovely stay at the Elsewhere Collaborative in Greensboro. We went straight to work on our first community animation featuring the characters of the Tiny Tiny Circus. Billy, the 17-year old strongman, and Sid, the human cannonball, have an antagonistic relationship, and this was Billy’s chance to get Sid.

Here we are working on the scene with the sheep chasing the gumballs, which we shot from above.

Eager animators of all ages!

 

There were lots of sheep sound effects to be made and recorded. We learned that sheep bleats most of the time sound like some variation of “bah,” but sometimes sound like “meh.” The sounds of the gumballs rolling through the hills was made from empty bottles rolling across the wooden floor.

Sweeping up the remnants of the workshop in the HUB-BUB Showroom. Now, we’re off to Columbia, Missouri to create a bumper for the Citizen Jane Film Festival with students from Stephens College, trap a Ghost with students at EEE school and, of course, dance.

We’ve taken to calling the airstream Silver Pelican. What do you think?

Elsewhere Winding Down...and Beyond!

It’s our last week at Elsewhere Collaborative in Greensboro, NC. We’re still clicking away on the History of Dust, brainstorming Traps with students in Columbia, Missouri and Mount Vernon, Iowa, and, it must be noted, completed a short research mission at the sea.

 

Here we are having a little fun with a Jack-in-the-box while talking remotely with students at EEE school in Columbia, MO. We will be creating a Trap animation with them in two weeks.

Sometimes during our remote conversations the students looked like pixelated waving sea creatures. We had a great time introducing them to Tiny Circus and listening to them respond to the animations. Their enthusiasm was bursting through the screen.

 

Let's not forget the most important thing: Ice Cream!  A walk down the street from Elsewhere is an important part of our days here - coffee espresso, mint chocolate chip, strawberry cheesecake - it's the Dari Barn of the south!

 

 Elsewhere has a six-person bike called the "Surrey" - here TC members and other residents of Elsewhere take the Surrey for a spin around town.  

 

Sound editing in the sun, on the couch, on the porch.   The doors open to the street and passers-by often peer in to see what we are up to. 

Up next: Spartanburg, South Carolina, where we’ll be doing a workshop with the community at HUB-BUB, an art space and residency. Check out the HUB-BUB blog for a short history of the Tiny Tiny Circus and plans for our workshop and show. The characters are ready for lights, camera, and action via lots of Spartanburg hands!

Films, Music, Pie

A few weeks ago, Tiny Circus was a part of Backyard Band/with, an evening of films set to live scores by local musicians, and our favorite part: it’s a potluck with homemade pies. We wish we could have shared Circus bread with the 1,500 people who came to this community event at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York.

The History of War, created by a group of about 20 children and adults at the Citizen Jane Film Festival in 2009, and The History of Falling, were great punctuation marks for the program of films, helping to transition between heavier and lighter pieces. A beautiful and tasty night.

An Eventful Weekend

The circus celebrated Labor Day with a weekend full of fun events and even a swimming trip to the local quarry.  A few days ago we put on a roadside Tiny Circus show in front of Elsewhere as part of Downtown Fridays in Greensboro.  Passers-by could watch all sorts of Tiny Circus histories, then come inside to help create our latest work in progress: The History of Dust.

Other Elsewherians took part in Downtown Fridays as well, making it a fun, high energy evening for everyone.

Resident artists challenged each other in super wheelie ball, an original game created by Ben Garthus.

Dust continued forming the next day, and was helped along by hands big and small at a free stop motion Playshop held at Elsewhere.  As you can see, we’re surrounded by books, and so its only natural that books play a big role in telling the History of Dust.  Using books as building blocks we are currently constructing a one-of-a-kind, book bound time machine!  As all the dust keeps piling up we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon.