Our first interactive workshop happened on the 24^th of March at Stallcombe House, and it was a fantastic success. The team from Calling The Shots brought two ‘workstations’ for the residents to use – a stop-motion clay animation table and an interactive green-screen. Residents really enjoyed making models from clay, developing a theme for their animations, learning how to use the software and actually animating their short films. Animals seemed to be somewhat of a popular theme during the day, with film clips about elephants and horses being two notable offerings. The green-screen room was also very popular, and for many of the participants something completely new for them to get involved with and have a go at. Residents seemed really happy to see themselves transported to scenes from their favourite television and films, with some people even enacting some of these scenes themselves.

We are in the process of organising our next workshop and we hope that it will be as successful as this one.

By the end of our first workshop the participants had created their own short films using stop-motion with the help of the teachers.

They created their own characters, stories and had used the stop-motion software to create their work.

We began the workshop introducing everyone to stop-motion animation, a process using multiple photos to create a moving image.

We started off exploring how stop-motion works with a few basic shapes and movements and everyone quickly got the hang of it

Our first workshop is at Stallcombe House. Stallcombe House is a residential community for adults with learning disabilities. It has a holistic and organic approach to personal health and the living environment.

Willows, which sits in the grounds of Stallcombe House and specialises in caring for adults with Autistic Spectrum Disorders, is the site of the film workshop.

Stallcombe House was founded in 1981 as a jointly funded project between the Health Authority and Social Services. The project was part of the nationwide programme to close long stay institutions and integrate the former patients into the wider community.

Sophie and me drove down to Stallcombe House with a box of plasticine and a couple of iPads. This was just a little pre-workshop introduction really. We wanted to see if people would be at all interested in making animations and plasticine models or if they might just not be bothered.

After an uneventful journey we arrived at Stallcombe House and set up shop on a big table in the weavery. There were 8-10 people around to start with. All of them got into making things with plasticine and we made a little animation with all the bits and bobs that had been constructed.

Slowly the number dropped as people lost interest and went about the rest of their days leaving only a couple of people who were more absorbed in the process. Tom, who had done some animation before, took to the iPads like a duck to water animating a simple snake and a caterpillar eating an apple. Sophie was working closely with David who, it emerged, is rather a fan of Classic monster films like Kong Kong and Godzilla. Along with a previously constructed bus they made a Godzilla and a King kong who fought an epic battle. As this was going on I was working with Danni. We made horses. Two little horses frolicked in a paddock while a stabled horse gazed on forlornly.

Before we knew it, lunch time was upon us. We packed up, said our goodbyes and went on our merry way.   All in, I would say the morning was a great success. It was lovely meeting the folks at Stallcombe house and I think it really helped our next workshop that we had done a little taster. In part because the people who took part in the longer session would know what to expect but mainly so us workshop leaders had a better idea of what the structure of the day would be like and gauge the level of interest in the people taking part – Dominic Pitt, Workshop Leader