Young Animators Compete In The LDSB Skills Competition At SLHS

Apr 04, 2013

It sure didn't feel like a competition, due to the fact that creative people often prefer to collaborate rather than compete. But compete they did on March 27, when six students in total competed in the first round of the 2D Computer animation component of the Limestone Skills Competition at Sharbot Lake High School.

In the final minutes before turning in their finished products, the three teams, comprised of students from Sharbot Lake, North Addington Education Centre in Cloyne and Sydenham High School, scrambled to put together their final animated short films, all of which were created in Adobe Flash and ran just over a minute in length.

With just a few minutes left in the competition, one team groaned as they lost all of the backgrounds to their film but luckily managed to find a way to put them back in.

The students began at 8:30am and worked right through until 2pm, with a short lunch break. The goal was to write, design and create a “spring” themed 2D animated short complete with storyboard. The competing students, who were from grade nine through twelve, had to first develop their characters, complete a story board, create all of the backgrounds and then animate their characters.

I had a chance to watch the finished films along with three volunteer judges, Ilona Cox, Eric Wotherspoon and Josh Goodfellow. The judges marked the films out of a total of 100 points. Points were scored for clarity of the message, story quality, cinematography, storyboard changes and final animation. Under the heading of character design, the students were judged on their model sheets, character design, model structure, character expression and model control.

The competition was run by SLHS math and computer teacher Nick Laan. It is one of a variety of competitions that invites LDSB students to test their mettle in different hands on skills with the hopes of encouraging them to focus on skilled trades opportunities in their future careers and/or post secondary studies. “The students competing here today are employing numerous skills like creativity, originality, organizational skills, working under pressure and to a deadline as well learning how to collaborate in a team,” Laan said. “These annual competitions, which normally take place on a single day at St. Lawrence College, are happening at various locations this year and the goal is to allow students a chance to focus on a skilled trade option that they might be interested in pursuing after high school. A competition like this one acts as an entry way; this particular group of students, for example, who are interested in animation might end up working in animation, media or graphic arts, advertising or journalism, or in a number of other related fields.”

Katie Ohlke, who teaches graphic art and computers at NAEC and was also present at the competition, said, “Not only is this a real-world application of their skills and a chance for students to see if they are interested in the particular field of work but it also gives students in the north a chance to travel to other schools and meet and work with other students who have similar interests.”

Shortly after 2pm the final winners were announced. Kara Morey and Emily Woodcock of Sydenham High School won for their spring bunny love story. They are now eligible to compete in a regional qualifier round at St. Lawrence College in Kingston along with other high students all over Eastern Ontario. Emily said that she and Kara plan to keep training and working hard with the hopes winning the next round. Asked about the competition they were up against, Kara said, “I was pretty intimidated. The other films were really great and they could have easily won too.”

Should Kara and Emily win round two in Kingston, they will move on and will be eligible to compete in Waterloo at the provincial level. If they win again they can go on to the country-wide Skills Canada competition.