Interviews and animation

Exciting things are afoot! We are going to have a small feature on our project on BBC news. It should be going out this week but will update later on this evening on the developments. This is very exciting for us and all of the project team. Please come back and visit our blog in a few hours for an update!

Premiere meeting

Great meeting in preparation for the premiere of the animation this evening!  Getting excited...!  Just need to prepare for our presentation now...no pressure then :-)

Planning Meeting

We are having a planning meeting today to prepare for 10 July.  We need to 'tweak' the programme, focus on our presentation and discuss other 'important points' relating to the evening - so keep watching!

Oral History

Bev and I recently spent an informative morning with Ivor Williams of Treboeth Historical Society where we discussed the origins of the Society and Ivor's involvement, personal and local history and of course Daniel James.  This was the second oral history we have completed plus we have some written memories from Alan Beddoe highlighting aspects of life at Mynyddbach.  In due course we will spend some time transcribing and summarising this information along with that provided by Miriam Evans.  There are also some other people who we are going to speak to and who knows what we may find out!

'News' round up!

Upcoming events include:

• Report on progress of oral hisories
• Translation of some of Daniel James's poems
• A feature on Mynyddbach Chapel
• July 10 - viewing of animation at Mynyddbach Chapel
• Information on the exhibition at the Waterfront Museum in September

Animation Workshop

The animation company Turnip Starfish http://turnipstarfish.com/  has recently made visits to the three schools involved in the project - Tirdeunaw, Bryn Tawe and Gwyrosydd.  Nick and his team, along with the children, have been working really hard in bring the story of Daniel James to life.  I was lucky enough to pop into Gwyrosydd School on 10 May to see 'work in progress'.

It was a hive of activity, the children enthusiastically setting up scenes to be animated with the Turnip Starfish team guiding and advising along the way.   The atmosphere was full of excitment as clips were viewed and it was a fantastic opportunity for the children to work as a team, using their own artwork to create a film.  It was enjoyable observing their actions as they devloped an understanding of the technical skills needed in the creative industry.

There is still quite a bit of work to do as Nick and his colleagues have to cut and edit  the output and record the music and voices to the film.  They are going to visit Bryn Tawe again in order to record the soundtrack and to complete this part of the work.

I am sure that all of the children have enjoyed the experience.  They will be part of the audience on July 10 at Mynyddbach Chapel to view the finished work!

School Workshops

All of the 'pre-animation' workshops have now taken place.

Geraint Williams and Ivor Williams met with the children in Tirdeunaw school on Tuesday 26 March and Geraint and I met with the children in Bryn Tawe on Thursday 28 March.  They all know have lots of information about Daniel James which they will be using in conjunction with the animation company Turnip Starfish.  Gwenno Ffrancon also visited Bryn Tawe where she inspired the children with her talk on their forthcoming work with the animation.

In addition to the above, some of the project team were put to the test on Friday 22 March by pupils from Tirdeunaw.  We were quizzed on topics which included Daniel James (of course), Mynyddbach Chapel and local history.  It was a great effort by Ivor, Geraint, Kate, Catrin and myself and of course the pupils!  They took lots of notes and were really interested in the topics and were well informed.  They had already been out to visit some of the sites of interest and shared their information with us.

The next steps for the project will be the animation after the Easter holidays so things seem to be moving at a fast pace.