By GRACEY MURPHY
An abundant imagination and a love of art: that’s all a kid needs to survive a week in an intensive animation camp.
Local art-house cinema FilmScene, 118 E. College St., will host Iowa City’s first Animation Summer Camps today through Friday and July 11-15. At the camp, middle-school students will have the opportunity to experiment with a variety of animation styles, including Claymation and GIFs.
In the past, FilmScene has played a part in orchestrating educational events for college, high-school, and elementary-school students but none for those in middle school.
Kembrew McLeod, a University of Iowa professor of communication studies and the head of FilmScene’s education committee, has been preparing for this camp for six months.
“I’ve taught video production,” he said, “It takes a whole semester to teach it to young adults in my class, so I realized animation would be the way to go.”
For the project, he enlisted the help of three current or former art teachers, including lead teacher Mark Jones, a freelance artist who has taught for seven years.
“In the classroom, the students would do the animation, but a lot of times, it would be me behind the scenes editing,” Jones said, “But this time, they’re going to be doing it all: shooting it, editing it, and making their own sound effects. They are the creators of their work.”
The camp will be split up into two sections. The first half of the camp will consist of the students learning the various styles of animation, while the second portion will allow the students to begin creating their original works, which they will then display after the workshop wraps up at the end of the week.
To produce their animations, the kids will use a variety of unconventional materials, such as sand and paper. In one of his elementary classes, Jones said, he even had his students use mustard to make sine waves. The room reeked of hot dogs for the remainder of the week, he noted.
To edit and exaggerate their work, the students will use iPads to add their special effects.
McLeod first discovered the iPad idea by observing his 5-year-old son make stop-motion videos on his device. His son took a liking to animation and over time created a series of vignettes with the software, including a dinosaur-battle video.
“I realized this would totally work for camp,” McLeod said. “An iPad would help lower the cost and empower the kids more. Adults have to do a lot of editing, but with iPads, it’s intuitive and easily taught.”
Jones’s father helped him create stop-motion as a kid, too. He made his first Claymation video after witnessing it on an episode of “Sesame Street.” Since then, he’s worked to transferred his love of art to children.
At one point, Jones even had students at his elementary school create their own music videos, among many other projects, before allowing them to share their manifestations and play with the animations. Jones said he loves teaching, because it enables him to see these initial creative impulses become more concrete.
“I’m looking forward to meeting the campers and seeing what they bring,” Jones said, “I’ve played with the software we’re going to use, and I know how to teach it, but I know they’re going to be doing things that I hadn’t considered, and that’s always what has interested me with teaching.”
With only 15 spots in each session, both camps have all sold out. Additionally, two children who would not ordinarily have been able to afford the camp have received scholarships to attend.
“Animation can be anything you want it to be,” McLeod said. “I look forward to seeing their projects.”