The Tate Movie Project

The Tate Movie Project

Overview
The project is led by the Tate in partnership with creative agency Fallon and Aardman Animations who will produce the movie and build the website.

The Tate Movie will be a 20-25 minute film made by primary school age children for children.

The children will provide all the assets for the film including: story ideas, characters, environments, sets, props, dialogue, jokes, sound effects, music. The ideas and assets will be pulled together by a team of professional film makers.

About the project
The Tate Movie project will provide children with a structured narrative context in which they can have the freedom to be creative and constructive on their own terms without the adult received wisdom that dictates what a children’s movie should be.

The priority is to create a film that will be entertainment of the highest quality but will involve children at a conceptual level as well as the practical design stage. The movie should be contemporary by way of authentic dialogue and relationships of characters, yet breathtakingly magical in terms of what could happen.

We will create a structure and provide guidance in order to make the children’s ideas achievable and bring their characters to life in the most impressive way possible.

Movie Technique
The movie will be made using 2D Flash animation in a 3D After Effects world

Workshops
The majority of the necessary “assets” for the movie will be created and collected during professionally facilitated workshops. These workshops will be a self contained experience with specific learning outcomes as well as providing the opportunity for children to contribute towards the film through the creation of relevant drawings, images, sounds and effects which be collected throughout the country between July 2010 and March 2011.

Story Production Workshops – These will be run by key members of the Aardman team at the four Tate Gallery locations – Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate St Ives and Tate Liverpool (July 2010) and at the National Art Galleries of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (October 2010).

Truck Road show Workshops – Following the production workshops the Tate Movie Truck will be run by the Tate and will tour the UK throughout the summer (July 2010 – October 2010). The truck will be equipped with facilities to run taster workshops as well as more in depth and will have a fully fitted sound studio on board. It will visit schools, community centres, festivals and shows around the countryside with one of its specific aims being to reach children in more remote or disadvantage areas.

Galleries and Museums Workshops – throughout the Autumn term 2010 and Spring term 2011 the Tate team will run workshops in their current partner galleries and other art centres, museums and galleries around the UK and including Northern Ireland.

Teacher’s Workshops – Teachers will be encouraged to run their own workshops using lesson plans and other assets available on the website. These will be updated as the production progresses and needs change.

Website
A website will be a virtual film studio and will form the hub of the Tate Movie online community. Children can upload their pictures and ideas as well as voting on those already on the site. They will be able to have a go at animation and be kept up to speed with progress on the movie. Animated characters will represent the professional Heads of Dept.

The website will also be the way that the production can call on the community to provide particular assets (eg “Please send frogs and rabbits” or “we need trees this week”).

The website will also create a persistent online buzz around the project.

Professional Film Crew
Whilst the ideas and assets will be drawn from and by children, professional film makers will be responsible for making the decisions about which assets to use to support their part of the work and will be involved from the beginning to advise on the best route to gather assets.

In addition to the Director and Producer, the following roles will be critical to the success of the project.
Script Writer
Script Editor
Production Designer
Editor
Composer
Sound Designer

A professional animation team will animate the drawings using “Flash” and pull the look together in “After Effects”. This will take place at Aardman Animations in Bristol.

Provisional Timings 
Website build starts:                                January 2010
Website launch:                                        July 2010
Production Workshops:                           July/Oct 2010
Truck/Galleries workshops:                   July 2010 – March 2011
Pre Production/Script Development:     June 2010 – October 2010
Production:                                                October 2010 – May 2011
Post Production:                                       December 2010 – June 2011
Release:                                                     July 2011