Mission Cosmos at Spring Meadow
“Silence on set please, we’re going for a take. Sound?”
"Ready"
“Camera?”
"Running"
“And action!”
The Secret Agents at Spring Meadow are filming a scene of ‘Mission Cosmos’, their espionage adventure film that is written, directed, acted, edited and produced by the year 5 class. Charlotte the director is busily working, “It doesn’t look right…it needs to be funnier…Courtney needs to waddle more”. She shows Courtney and Hannah what she means, and they take the scene again.
The film is a collaboration of the children’s ideas and inspirations that have slowly merged together since the start of the project in January 2009. They have used their topic book for Spring Term, ‘Stormbreaker’ by Anthony Horowitz, as a starting point which has given them important insights into the intricacies of pace, rhythm, expression and environment that are so important in film production.
Process
The project started in January when director Alan Caig Wilson came into the school to run some workshops on emotion, observation, space and environment. During one activity the children had to divide into groups to come up with a freeze frame that would tell a story, which forced the children to articulate the story and their emotions in ways other than words by using their faces and expressions. The purpose of the workshops was to get the children to start thinking about the different aspects of making a film.
The next stage of the project involved the creation of the story and the script writing, which is entirely their own. They started by looking at location and time and all put their ideas in a hat - “At midnight”, “tomorrow”, “in a forest”. Each chapter was picked out of the hat, which left the scene of one particular chapter as “in a warehouse at midday with spiders”. Once the scene had been set for the film they were able to start working on what would actually happen, who would be involved and what was going to be said. The result of their teamwork was the creation of Maggot, a fiendishly evil computer whiz who has worked out how to use his computer to suck out peoples’ brains leaving them ‘brainless’ and giving him their intelligence. When a person has been “maggoted” they are left with the ugly sign of a maggot on their head.
Once the basics of the story had come together Martin Sercombe, animator and film maker, came into the school to work with the children on creating storyboards and making frames. They started working on the rhythm of the story and brainstormed words that might help – “dancing”, “clapping”, “balancing”, “thud”, “pow”, “zoom” and “swoosh”. Anne Tyrrell, the school’s Creative Partnerships Coordinator and year 5 class teacher, said that seeing them writing so much was amazing. They then started to makes montages and track the shots.
When it came to choosing who was going to take which part in the production of ‘Mission Cosmos’ the children were left to decide for themselves what they would like to do; to act, to direct, to film, to record, to research, to make props or to edit. They each chose their own role and took it on with the knowledge of the responsibilities that came with it.
Impact
As part of the project the children went on a trip to the Science Museum in February to gain inspiration for their film. They visited the Shadow room, used the thermal camera and spent time in the Launchpad, the museum’s “hands-on, brains-on gallery” which encourages children to ask questions and to try to understand the way things work. The day was a fantastic success, which provoked a surge of energy amongst the children. Once back in the classroom they analysed the pace of the day (their new film-making technique), which ranged from the “boring journey” to “I felt like wow!” when in the museum.
The teaching assistant Linda Howard explains that it’s not just the improved literacy and all the new words they have come up with during the project that amazes her but also the self esteem and confidence it has given all the children as they have each taken on great responsibilities.
The project concluded with an exhibition at the school during Shine Week and the premier of the film on 14 July at the Electric Palace. This was an opportunity for the children to show the whole school the results of their hard work and to invite along parents and other members of the community to witness their success.