Pubdate: Wed, 29 Jun 2005
Source: Canmore Leader (CN AB)
Copyright: 2005 Canmore Leader
Contact:  http://www.canmoreleader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3321
Author: Dave Husdal
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

CCHS STUDENTS TURN CLAY AND CAMERAS INTO ANTI-DRUG MESSAGE

Wallace and Grommet it isn't, but The White Line
isn't exactly a hastily slapped together school project either.

The video, which runs almost four and a half minutes in black and
white, is a relatively high-tech offering from a pair of students
who've learned the art of filmmaking can mean getting their hands
dirty, or at least marked with a little bit of clay.

Students Adam Greenberg and Shaun James are the minds behind The White
Line, its technology, story line, music and anti-drug message.

Their effort hasn't gone unnoticed, says Chris Rogers, their
communications technology teacher at Canmore Collegiate.

"They brought that whole art form to a whole new level at the high
school," Rogers says.

That art form is claymation -- the digital filming of clay figures on
a set to produce a production that looks as real as a motion picture.

Wallace and Grommet are perhaps the best known claymation characters
out there nowadays, and provide inspiration for both Greenberg and
James, two Grade 12 students looking to further their art and film
education on the West Coast once CCHS is behind them.

The duo worked with a Mac computer, digital camera and video camera to
produce The White Line and its anti-drug message in black and white.

It's a production that has impressed Rogers to the point where it's to
be shown to younger students for the message it conveys.

That message is one about the dangers of drugs, and how relatively
soft drugs like marijuana can lead to use of harder drugs and the
committing of crime to get them.

While the idea of a clay figure snorting cocaine, smoking pot and
holding up his girlfriend at knifepoint may sound a little
off-the-wall, it works in The White Line.

"We tried to find an issue that we wanted to talk about," says
Greenberg, explaining what drives the plot in The White Line.

Given that drugs are relevant to the lives of young people, it seemed
a logical choice as a topic for the two young filmmakers to tackle.

The symbolism is everywhere in the film's title. James notes the
production's main character has crossed the line from softer to harder
drugs and from legal to illegal behaviour. A white line eventually
surrounds where a clay body falls near the end of a film.

There's also a coke-snorting scene that took quite the effort to
capture on digital, with the filmmakers sucking up icing sugar through
a straw and painstakingly documenting it at 30 frames per second.

Claymation isn't just about technology, however, something the pair
learned as they build their characters.

"Our first characters weren't spectacular," James offers. Both
filmmakers said their clay character construction improved over the
course of the months of making the film, as did their patience.

And their toughest challenge?

Anything with significant movement. Those shots meant using problem
solving skills in a big may, the pair say. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake