Animation camp at FilmScene brings out kids' stories

Some summer camps feature log cabins, canoes and lessons about the great outdoors. Summer camp at FilmScene is different — more creative, more animated.

This summer, FilmScene started its Animation Summer Camp, a camp held inside the downtown Iowa City movie theater that features two local animators teaching kids the fine, and fun, art of making animated movies. With two separate weeklong sessions, the camp aims to bridge the gap between the creative ambitions of youths and the animated features they see on the big screen.

"I want to see what they're bringing to the art form. I want to see them tell their own stories," said Mark Jones, one of the two lead teachers for the camp. "I know they're going to teach me some things with their creativity."

The camp has five stations — for shadow puppet animation, hand-drawn cartoons, stop-motion clay animation, video game graphics, and animations of the students themselves — each featuring iPads and software specifically made for stop-motion animation, Jones said.

At the end of each week is a screening of students' work on a theater screen at FilmScene, and campers also get a digital copy of their work. (The camp held last week was targeted to fifth- and sixth-graders, and a camp set for July 11 to 15 is intended for seventh- and eighth-graders.)

The summer camp is led by two teachers with experience teaching art in the Iowa City Community School District. Jones taught for seven years as a K-12 arts teacher, and his fellow summer camp instructor Buffy Quintero is teaching art at Longfellow and Lucas elementary schools.

Quintero and Jones were asked to teach for the camp by FilmScene's education committee chairman, Kembrew McLeod, who had been planning a FilmScene summer camp event since late last year. Once he and his son, Alasdair Nugent-McLeod, discovered a stop-motion app for iPad and made a movie featuring toy dinosaurs fighting each other, McLeod knew he had the basis of an animation summer camp.

"With the iPad, the kids can take high-definition photos and even make movies without needing adults to edit it. That's huge for kids," McLeod said.

Noting that the summer camp has already been a "huge success," McLeod said they plan to expand the animation summer camp to more sessions next summer. FilmScene is working to establish after-school programs for students soon. Registration is closed for this year's camps, which are already at capacity.

Quintero said the opportunity to teach kids how to animate over a long, concentrated time during summer was something she couldn't turn down.

"It just sounded like an amazing experience, to focus so much on art and really dig deep into animation," she said.

Jones, now a full-time freelance artist, hosts workshops dedicated to showing teachers how to establish animation curriculum in schools, and Quintero said teaching an animation-based summer camp is a more immersive progression from what they have taught in the past.

"This concentrated time of teaching animation, it helps them so much in bringing their own creativity to life and learn the joy of creativity," Quintero said. "We hope we will instill in these students that love of creativity."

Though Jones said he was encouraged by the ICCSD to teach students about animation, teaching art to kids during school hours can be time-consuming. Jones said an average class will get 40 minutes of creativity time in between setting up and cleaning up art supplies. This five-day camp allows for a "deep dive" of creativity, Jones said, that will hopefully foster the students' love for creating and animating. 

"I think kids, and adults, are interested in animation because it's kind of the closest to magic you can get: I draw it and that drawing dances around," Jones said. "These students are coming here directly because they have an interest in animation. That's exciting to me."

Reach Zach Berg at 319-887-5412, zberg@press-citizen.com, or follow him on Twitter at @ZacharyBerg.