By GRETCHEN MURRAY
TRAVERSE CITY -- Moviegoers hurrying from one Traverse City Film Festival venue to another last month might have overlooked the sign in front of the Weaver Building on Union Street encouraging them to stop in and learn more about animation and filmmaking.
Those who checked it out during festival week got a chance to participate in one of several "Get Animated" offerings that were one of the new offshoots of this year's film festival. The mini workshops let children and teens try their own hand at animation and movie making by creating basic animation flip books and short videos.
The workshops staffed by members of The Art Place in Suttons Bay and the Suttons Bay High School Film Club members were so enthusiastically received that TAP has decided to stay on at the location and continue offering filmmaking and animation instruction.
Chris Allen-Wickler, who co-directs the TAP program along with photographer Ken Scott, says the location's close proximity to the State Theatre makes it an ideal venue for building on the community's film fixation and offering a place where novice filmmakers can learn and keep their creative juices flowing.
"We had the best week ever," said Allen-Wickler of festival week. "We asked the Traverse City Film Festival if they would put us on their Web site, and our phone was flooded with kids who wanted to participate in the class offerings."
Plans have since snowballed for the organization that originally expected to be in Traverse City for only three weeks. Mark Dancer and his wife, Catherine, who own the 4,000 -square-foot space that was once occupied by WLDR radio, have agreed to help TAP get on its feet for the first year as they work out their nonprofit status and funding. "It's within our reach to keep going," Allen-Wickler said. The first session of classes are scheduled to begin on Sept. 23.
In the meantime, many volunteers are putting in long hours freshening up the space with an eclectic palette of paint in time for an open house scheduled from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Monday at the new facility.
The Art Place was started several years ago as a volunteer after school art program in the Suttons Bay High School art room. "At that point we were just using video cameras, tripods and clay and doing claymation like 'Wallace and Grommet,'" Allen-Wickler said.
"The kids from Suttons Bay got involved because of Scott Tompkins, the art teacher at the high school. Scott is an incredible teacher and they adore him," Allen-Wickler said.
It was Tompkins who sought out his friend and film festival co-founder Doug Stanton, who proposed the students do something during the film festival, and it was Stanton who put them in touch with Dancer.
"I told Doug that I was willing to donate the space to this year's film festival," said Dancer, of Traverse City. "When TAP came to me and said they'd really like to stay, it seemed like the right thing to do."
Dancer said his wife, Catherine, and their two teenage daughters expressed an interest in serving on TAP's new nonprofit board.
"They said they were looking for input from kids," he said.
"We would like to continue with animation, which is our strength, but it also can be very time-consuming," Allen-Wickler said. "Live action or interviewing with immediate results is a little easier for a lot of people to get into film."
She said animation doesn't always require artistic talent.
"There are a dozen techniques that are immediately accessible to kids," she said. "You can simply move an object around and be an animator, so it's totally accessible or you can get down into the inner depths of animation as well."
Volunteer Lynne Perkins of Suttons Bay took a film course during a semester in college and realizes that children now have the process demystified by the time they are 8 years old.
"So, they think, I can do this. What can't I do," Perkins said. "It's the art of their time. It's their medium."
TAP plans to maintain its long-standing presence in Suttons Bay. It will be at Suttons Bay High School every Wednesday after school to serve its base there. "The nice thing is that we're coming full circle from where we started," Allen-Wickler said.
A recent grant is helping the group set up at Suttons Bay High School to produce a series of movies for the 2008 Bioneers Conference in mid-October, and students hope to put together a program for International Animation Day on Oct. 28 that will be viewed at the State Theatre.
"It's like we're living a dream," Allen-Wickler said. "I couldn't imagine four months ago this would be happening."
TAP will be starting classes at its new space, 122 S. Union St. in Traverse City on Sept. 23. After-school sessions will take place from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays for children 8 years and older. Sessions cost $40 and require preregistration. Call 271-0104.
