How Bear Got a Short Tail

Created by: Jaanelle Schafer and Melayna Kyikavichik

A traditional Gwich'in legend told using animated paper puppets.

Gwich'in Translation: Brenda Kaye and Mary Jane Moses

Gwich'in Narration: Jaanelle Schafer and Melayna Kyikavichik

- Old Crow YK - 2012, 3:06

English Subtitles

Gwich'in Subtitles

Traditional Teachings

Created by: Sheila Kyikavichik

A mini-doc about Ellie, a young Gwich'in cultural leader.

Gwich'in Translation: Brenda Kaye 

Gwich'in Narration: Sheila Kyikavichik

- Old Crow YK - 2012, 2:32

English Subtitles

Gwich'in Subtitles

Direct Wind

Created by: Jessica Nukon

A lyrical, classically animated depiction of love.

Gwich'in Translation: Brandon Kyikavichik and Joel Peter 

Gwich'in Narration: Brandon Kyikavichik

- Old Crow YK - 2012, 1:47

WINNER of The 2013 MITY Youth Award for the Dawson City International Short Film Festival ! 

English Subtitles

Gwich'in Subtitles

How the Bear Fooled the People

Created by: Darcy Andre

An animated traditional Gwich'in legend.

Gwich'in Translation: Brandon Kyikavichik and Joel Peter 

Gwich'in Narration: Brandon Kyikavichik

- Old Crow YK - 2012, 1:58

English Subtitles

Gwich'in Subtitles

How the Loon and Crow Got their Colours

Created by: Caleb Charlie

The well loved traditional Gwich'in legend comes to life in an animated form.

Gwich'in Translation: Brenda Kaye, Brandon Kyikavichik and Joel Peter 

Gwich'in Narration: Joel Peter

- Old Crow YK - 2012, 2:09

English Subtitles

Gwich'in Subtitles

Old Crow - credits

The video credits for the Our World, Old Crow workshop with super 8 footage shot during the workshop in 2008. 

-Old Crow Yukon - 2012,  1:04 

Old Crow - Workshop Introduction

Created by Frances Ross
A video that explains Our World and the Old Crow 2012 workshop created by a teacher from the  Chief Zzeh Gittlit School. 

-Old Crow Yukon - 2012,  5:21 

Old Crow - Screening Night!

It was a full house of warmth, positivity and pride! 

It started with a fabulous feast - had introductions and appreciations, celebrated the young filmmakers and ended in congratulations!

Sheperd's Pies, salad and homebaked buns!

The Elders look down from the pictures high on the walls

The Old Crow organizer, Megan Williams, introduces the Our World team

Lisa g gives thanks to everyone involved and congratulates the filmmakers

A wonderful night!

Old Crow - Day Five

So this is the last workshop day...everyone must finish their pieces today!

We are happy to report that all 5 films were completed and we shall be ready for the screening tomorrow!

The scene outside the workshop

Joel and Brandon record the final version for Caleb's story

Caleb, Brandon and Joel watch Darcy's finished film

Stanley and Lisa g watch Jaanelle and Melayna's film

Sheila is finished and Frances works on a Behind the Scenes video

Old Crow - Day Four

The energy ramps up as the stories come closer and closer to completion. 

Tracy helps Melayna with an underwater scene

Jessica is focussed finishing her final flip book

Jessica now starts photographing her flip books

Frame by Frame animation 

Sheila gets sign off from Ellie - her 2 year old documentary subject

Caleb works on the Loon gets his colours scene

Coluring the Loon 

Frances assists with the Loon jumping into the lake

Old Crow - Day Three

Full production continues today with the addition of Gwich'in language team: Brandon Kyikavichik and Joel Peter.

Brandon and Joel translate a story

Melayna and Jaanelle create one of  their backgrounds

The Lisa's watch an animated scene just created by Melayna and Jaanelle

Attention to detail makes animation magic

Tracy assists with animation magic

Jaanelle sometimes does beadwork between scenes

Brandon and Lisa J consult with Darcy on story

Lisa J assists Darcy in the art of animation

Lisa g gives Sheila editing tips

Sheila already has a rough edit!

Calebs puppets are very detailed

Nothing better than a buzzing production studio
(Please notice Jessica - top left - STILL drawing)

The mentors enjoy lists to stay on track!

Old Crow - Day Two

The workshop starts at 9am...so this means it feels a little like midnight since it is still pitch black outside. 

We (the Our World team) walk from the newer part of town to old town along the airstrip and following the moon, which takes about 15 minutes and when we get to the Tyzia Centre...Jessica is already waiting for us...yay!

Then, most of the rest of the students arrive on the bus at about 9:05.

Today is the last day that we have Mary Jane Moses and Brenda Kay so we have them very busy  translating the stories that are ready into Gwich'in. They are both VERY generous with their time.

As always, and as per normal, everyone is in a different stage of their projects:

Jessica gets right to work on creating her flip book animation...this dedicated artist draws all day! 

Sheila has almost all her media: photos, video and text and is ready to record as soon as translation is ready.

Caleb works on his artwork and backgrounds as we solidify his story.

Darcy also works on his backgrounds and characters as his translation is completed.

Jaanelle and Melayna are figuring out style but their story is ready and it also gets translated.

The day goes by FAST!

Luckily, Frances has the grand idea to take a group picture today (before things get really crazy), so here we are:

top: Caleb, Stanley, Mary Jane, Megan, Brenda, Jaanelle, Melayna, Sheila, Darcy, Jessica
bottom: Frances, Lisa J, Lisa g and Tracy

The workshop space

Frances, Lisa J, Jessica and Darcy get to work

Jessica refers to her storyboard to create her flip book animation.

Lisa J and Tracy discuss story style with Jaanelle and Melayna

Sheila and MaryJane discuss Sheila's project

Lisa g and Sheila organize Sheila's media

Darcy getting his scenes ready

Darcy starts to animate!

Brenda helps Sheila with her Gwich'in pronunciation for her recording

Lisa J records Melayna and Jaanelle voice over with Brenda's help

Caleb's animation station

Caleb creating his characters

Old Crow - Day One

Landing in Old Crow

Our World is so happy to be back in Old Crow!

The weather is positively balmy...only about -33 or so... and thus we are thankful to be borrowing things like mukluks, coats trimmed with rabbit fur and mittens!

The Our World team this trip is Lisa Jackson (writing and story mentor), Tracy Lewis (animation mentor)  and Lisa g Nielsen (technical mentor). 

The John Tyzia Center where the workshops take place!

View from the workshop...probably between 11:30-2pm - the only time it is light out!

The first day is all about meeting the participants and finding out about their story ideas. Today we met Darcy Andre, Jessica Newton, Melayna Kyikavichik, Jaanelle Schafer, Caleb Charlie, Sheila Kyikavichik and Camisha Charlie. Dakota also attended although he was still deciding if he wanted to join us!

These grade 9-11 students have a very organized and enthusiastic teacher: Frances Ross! Frances worked for weeks with her students on story and style...this was an incredible help to the workshop...this creates more time to spend on pre-production, production and post!

Darcy is doing an animated project based on a trational Gwich'in story called  "How the Bear Fooled the People."

Jessica loves drawing and wants to try her hand at classical animation.

Melayna and Jaanelle are working in a team and also want to animate a tradtional story - this one is called "How the Bear got a Short Tail".

Caleb wants to also do animation for the traditonal story "How the Loon and the Crow got their Colours".

Sheila is telling a story through the eyes of a two year old...Ellie is a young Gwich'in kid who will teach us all about traditional ways through photograph and video.

Camisha wants to talk about the history and geography of the Gwitch'in people using archival photographs.

A very exciting group of stories.

We spent the first workshop day looking at examples of films, going over story structure, copyright and permissions. In the afternoon we had a bit of fun with pixelation and then moved on to shot list and storyboarding ! A great day!

Pixelation exercise 

Melayna, Jaanelle, Tracy and Lisa Jackson

Jessica, Caleb and Dakota

Jessica, Dakota, Caleb, Lisa g and Darcy

Jessica and Darcy watching pixelation

Learning about Shot Lists