From top left to right: Nate Gilliss, Daniel Elnecave, Jing Hong,
Leanna Knowles, Darren Brereton (teacher).
Next level: Lisa Wilson, AshleighVaillancourt, Gillian Cole.

At the click of a mouse, visitors to the City of Vancouver Drug Policy Program’s website can view the stories of Alan, who smokes crack, Martin, who injects drugs and Carmen who uses heroin.

The fictional characters were created by seven, third-year Emily Carr University of Art + Design animation students in a Collaborative Animation class that combines learning about animation with the experience of working for a real client.

Instructor Darren Brereton, who has taught this class about four times in the past, said it’s the least structured class he teaches because the projects, selected from “real-world” clients, dictate the curriculum. This year, Brereton said, students had two choices: “The grit of the Downtown Eastside or skinny little frogs.” The students could choose to work on an animation showing harm reduction in action for the Drug Policy Program or one telling the story of Vancouver’s Camosun Bog for the society working to protect and enhance the bog.

In order to create the stories, the students researched drug-related issues, visited sites within the Downtown Eastside, viewed the Vancouver-based films Fix and Bevel Up, and interviewed healthcare providers in the Downtown Eastside (DTES).

Brereton stressed that the project was a huge challenge for the students. “None of them had ever done any full production before, they’ve only done exercises.”

It also gave them the opportunity to work for a real client, rather than a teacher. Brereton said that meant that the students had to produce something the client found acceptable, even if that entailed numerous changes in order to please the client. “To have a client with real needs and concerns and a niche to fill is a gold mine.”

The students who worked on the harm reduction animation decided to tell the story of four drug users; about three-quarters of the way through the process they realized they had been a little unrealistic about how much time the project required and cut the project down to three stories. These tell the stories of Alan, who smokes crack but aches to quit using drugs and become reunited with his young daughter; Martin, an injection drug user who travels to a needle exchange as he recalls the number of friends he has lost to overdose and disease; and Carmen, who holds down a job but still needs a daily maintenance dose of heroin.

In order to create the stories, the students researched drug-related issues, visited sites within the Downtown Eastside, viewed the Vancouver-based films Fix and Bevel Up, and interviewed healthcare providers in the Downtown Eastside (DTES).

Lisa Wilson, one of the seven students who worked on the animation (along with Gillian Cole, Daniel Elnecave, Nathan Gilliss, Jin Hong, Leanna Knowles and Ashleigh Vaillancourt), said the students chose to work on the harm reduction animation because “it sounded contemporary, it seemed quite relevant.” She said the experience was tremendously valuable in teaching the students what it’s like to work collectively on an animation project. “Animation is a collaborative process; very few people work independently.” She said the experience of creating these animations taught the students what it’s like to work as a group, how to interact with others and how to work with each person’s strengths.

Working on the project also strengthened the students’ animation skills. The students used a compositing method whereby they filmed actors performing the movement for each role and then inserting a portion (the heads) of the characters into the animation. That meant they had to learn how to match the live action they’d filmed with the animations. They also had to write the scripts, hire and direct the actors and work with a make-up artist.

Wilson said that the students appreciated having the opportunity to work for a client and get a sense of the “real world” of animation. “It’s better, I think, to realize that’s the process you need to go through,” she said. “It’s the reality of working in animation.”