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    STUDENT ANIMATION WORKSHOP
April 25, 2009

Area students' animated film is screened

'Here There Be Monsters' won Best of Show

BY LINDSAY VANHULLE

TRAVERSE CITY -- Someday, Adin Harmon wants to see his name scroll by in movie credits.

"And not as an extra," he's quick to add.

Not even as an actor. He wants his name to be on-screen much later than that, under titles like "cinematographer" or "director."

"I just want to be in the industry," said Adin, 15, a sophomore at Traverse City West Senior High. "Film's always been really cool."

Today, a short animated film by Adin and a group of students from across the state is being shown at the Michigan Student Film and Video Festival at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Selected as Best of Show, "Here There Be Monsters" features hand-drawn creatures morphing into different characters.

The students, 16 in all, are part of the Student Animation Workshop through the Royal Oak-based nonprofit Digital Arts, Film and Television, known as DAFT. Twelve of the students are local.

In addition, Zoe Allen-Wickler, a student at Suttons Bay High School, and Boaz Scott, 11, who is home-schooled, will have films at the festival under separate entries.

Since January, workshop students met one weekend a month at nonprofit animation studio The Art Place to create "Monsters" and four short films. They had to apply to be selected.

In its 18th year, the workshop brings together students with similar interests to explore a new medium.

It's not a basic animation training course. It is a focused, hands-on production experience where students put in long hours and pitch storyboard ideas by the end of the first weekend.

"They animate their brains out," said John Prusak, a filmmaker who assists the workshop. "It's really great. You can see the lightbulbs go on when the kids see all these elements coming together."

Students started on their projects as early as 7 a.m. and often worked until after midnight. But the discussions didn't stop after they left.

"They're learning the process of what it's like in the real world," said Chris Allen-Wickler, director of The Art Place. "They have to pitch the story. They have to convince others to work on their team. And then they have to realistically produce the piece."

Forest Jarvis, a workshop participant and sophomore at Suttons Bay High School, started animating in elementary school.

He said his early movies were "kind of unstructured," but he won first place in the East Lansing Children's Film Festival in 2005.

"It feels a little more unpredictable," Forest, 16, said of animation. "There's more I can do with it."

The national recession has trickled down to the nonprofit sector, drying up funding sources and leaving the workshop -- and its host organizations -- with an uncertain future.

Both DAFT and The Art Place are looking for new ways to generate revenue as grants are cut back. The latter moved to Traverse City from Suttons Bay in August, and Allen-Wickler said workshop fees don't cover all expenses.

DAFT receives money from a state arts council under the umbrella of the Department of History, Arts and Libraries that Gov. Jennifer Granholm proposed cutting to balance the state budget.

Adin, from West Senior High, hopes the workshop will survive. It's because of the program that his work was entered in his first festival. He's now considering animation as a possible career path.

"It's your own world. You create whatever you want to create out of it," Adin said. "It was the most fun I've had in a long time."

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