Skedaddle

Coming soon... Skedaddle Games showing you how to play traditional games like hand clap, string games, jump rope, elastics, marbles.... games for on your own or with your friends, neighbours and even parents and grandparents. Games that have lasted for centuries because they are the best games ever!

Meghan Lagdon was inundated with requests by schools to come and visit them and show them how to play traditional games after she did workshops at her own kid's school. Meghan found the kids, of all ages, boys and girls loved mastering the games and it set off many a new (from old) fad in the school yard. But she couldn't get to all those schools. But she had an idea...

"These sort of games used to be passed down from generation to generation but slowly we are losing them. However these games are fun, cheap and don't require much equipment if any and they help you develop your memory, cordination and social skills. There are books on these games but it is much easier to be shown how to do them than to try and figure them out from a book."

So Meghan Lagdon wanted to create a DVD series and that's where I came in and after a few stops and starts our test pilot is almost here! The question is DVD or online or mobile or TV ...??? Put it on your Christmas list anyhow!

Accessible Nature Programmes for Kids

My daughter Demelza and I made a quick science film this time last year. We filmed it with the families digital stills camera (in an unexpected half hour due to a rock to the head which is another story....) and edited it at home. We were inspired to make it for a science film competition for students, the Sleek Geeks Science film competition run through Sydney University. It was a great opportunity for me to work with my daughter, to reinforce her 'story' and to hopefully impart some science appreciation and some understanding of film making. It is called the Fossil Hunters Story and it is self explanatory.......

This is not a professional film, although I enjoy filming and editing I was not trying to achieve professional quality and I am a believer in the additive creative value of teamwork! However the project got me thinking about how kids are very interested in the nature they observe for themselves around themselves, and it is when they are interested that you can get the most engagement and learning. An expert can rattle on about fascinating stuff but it can just fall on deaf ears unless the audience is engaged. But if the interest is there then it is taken on board. Much of the nature programming on television is beautiful and fascinating stuff about things and places most of us will never see or go to. It is nice to watch, interesting to hear about (although usually fairly superficial) and it is escapism. I think there is also a place, especially within kids programming for more accessible nature, the stuff they are able to see and experience if they want to/try to. Kids could tell their nature stories (as in the fossil hunters story) and then we could add to their experience with experts, research and specialist photography. I am working along those lines, watch this space.

The Sounds of the Rainbow Dragons

The Rainbow Dragons (about whom I have often written) do not appear to have voices in the promo. But they do have them! The voices, although recorded, did not fit into the promo for one reason or other. They do not speak a known language but are expressive enough to be understood. The stories and games always have a helpful narrator who is a sensitive translator and commentator who talks to the dragons and the audience without taking the initiative away from the Dragons themselves as they seek to solve problems both practical and social in their activities. So here are the voices of excitable Tina, ponderous Rhomby and bossy Goo. There is more from the numeric Oobly Dooblies and shapely Fijity Wiks and there is also the sound of the Scatterbats - the whirling force of interruption whose arrival is often heralded by their distinctive sound and so can be acted on, if they are heard and there is some quick thinking.

David Pye put his percussive talents to the Oobly Dooblies and Fijity Wiks. The sounds of the Oobly Dooblies and Fijity Wiks provide the basis for a computer game where children can create rhythms and music by arranging Oobly Dooblies and or Fijity Wiks as David has here, albeit with a few extra instruments.

The voice of Tina and the Narrator are supplied by the multi-talented opera soprano Penny Shaw (who can also be heard in the theme tune of Jelly Jym which she and Richard Seale improvised one evening at the FTI. ) Check out her real work at the Daisy Productions website (and try to spot my work there!?) Rhomby was voiced by the guy who modelled and animated him - Dave Ronnert. The energetic voice of Goo was supplied by Eileen Glynn who has lots of voices!
To find out more about The Rainbow Dragons project see previous posts on this blog or watch the promo on the Jelly Jym on BlipTV channel linked to from this blog.