Lear Settings

Evaluation Report

Programme: Creative Partnerships
Applicant name: Hull Sinfonietta
Reference: 7022094
Name of Activity: Animated Jumbly Girl – Lee Tsang

[In the original report, key achievements were underlined.]

 

 

 

The rationale for using animation was based on these core beliefs:

 

1) contemporary music scores are much more readily accepted when presented in a film context

2) animation allows us to connect artistically with the historical traditions of Lear’s own illustrations and so would add a new dimension to the existing works

3) animation helps engage those younger audiences who we are trying to attract and educate

4) use of animation in live concert performances offers a distinctive, memorable artistic experience for both participants and audiences

5) a film would enable us to devise interesting musico-literary educational projects that would involve children in the creative aspects of both composition and performance

 

Moreover, the project has opened up (and continues to open up) experiences to film-oriented audiences by offering:

 

1) screenings in non-traditional contexts (principally concerts)

2) optional live contributions to the soundtrack; these include replacing the pre-recorded soundtrack to ‘A Jumbly Girl’ with live improvisation based on Borthwick’s original guidelines.

 

In order to reach out to as many young people as possible, three subsequent phases of workshop activity focused on distinctly different groups of pupils, so the activities were adapted to meet the specific needs of those groups: Group I consisted of ‘Gifted’ and ‘Talented’ pupils (mixed sexes and age groups, mostly pre-GCSE) interested in both music and animation; Group II consisted of pupils (mixed sexes, COPE award level) with behaviourial or learning challenges; Group III consisted of pupils (all female) with good behavioural track records and a special interest in art.

 

All groups learnt a range of different skills, including basic principles of animation and the use of dedicated software; most importantly, each phase of activity also emphasised a different aspect of Borthwick’s music, which meant that each group was able to offer something unique to the project. Investing themselves within ‘high art’ in this way was intended to encourage the individual’s perceived ownership of the work and thus its significance for that individual, potentially increasing the likelihood of reflection and a return to the work or to the genre in the medium-long term. This level of connectedness to the work goes beyond what one normally experiences in workshops based on serious contemporary classical music in today’s pre-higher education settings. Given the positive reactions, we believe that the project did succeed in providing this sense of ‘self-investment (see responses below).

 

It became clear as the project progressed that within these multimedia contexts animation as a technical discipline offers particularly useful frameworks for articulating music-analytic concerns, such as:

• The audio-visual contract (after Chion, 1995)

• Principles of audio-visual counterpoint

• Audio-visual parallels: timbres/colours, textures, gestures

• Conformance, complementation and contest (after Cook 1999)

• Emotional effects of synch points and transitions

• Principles of repetition and variation

• Large-scale structure

Its usefulness has implications not just for secondary level workshops like the ones we carried out, but (I would suggest) for a re-invigoration of music analysis teaching within tertiary education. Music analysis as a discipline has arguably steadily fallen out of favour over the last decade, not least for its impression of theory for theory’s sake. The proposed use of animation for music analysis is in the spirit of traditions that emerged in the 90s of teaching ‘Analysis through composition’ (Cook), though better reflects contemporary interests in multimedia and emphasises responses to music’s sensuous nature.

 

No. of people involved in the project

 

78 people in total were involved (47 pupils from AMBEC; 31 professionals)

 

Brief description of what happened

 

Materials for the film were generated from three phases of workshop activity with pupils from Andrew Marvell School as was intended.

 

The aspects of the music, poetry and animation that were explored in the workshops are too numerous to list, and in some cases overlap, but the primary ways in which the groups had original input into the work can be summarised as follows:

 

Group/Phase I

• Responding to the ‘Jumbly’ theme through analysis and re-composition (variations)

• Production and sampling of sounds, dialogue and singing for soundtrack development (featured in Section 2) [development of ‘music’ to accompany images]

• Timbral manipulation through use of sound technology (featured in Section 2)

Group/Phase II

• Researching aural exoticism (featured in Section 2)

• Character design and placement (scene re-enactment in response to the settings)

• Real-time artistic responses to the heard settings

• Pixelation of images for rotoscoping (featured in Section 2)

Group/Phase III

• Responding to the writer-director’s brief

• Production of artwork – stills and animated passages – in response to the settings (featured in Sections 1 and 3)

 

Many of the sounds produced for the central animated short were in some form generated by the first group, which had a special interest in all things musical, and where appropriate, were linked with the idea of musique concrete; pupils were encouraged to focus on the timbre of every day sounds, thinking about its structural make-up and its potential emotional impact. The film included dialogue, singing and sound effects produced by the pupils, and timbral manipulation through use of sound technology, as demonstrated in workshops.

 

As the second group was tied to specific pupil qualification outcomes – the COPE award – it was important for our activities to fit around the needs for satisfying this award as well as for ensuring effective ways of engaging some of the most challenging pupils of the school. Aspects of the work produced here made their way into the film in a more limited way because of this, though they allowed for experimentation, required the students to be actively researching music, and very much defined the direction of the next phase. Musically, the exploration of Chinese cultures as a basis for signalling exoticism, was significant, as were the pupils’ real-time artistic responses to the heard settings. This group influenced approaches to background design, and examples of their pixilation and rotoscoping featured in the dance sequences of the setting ‘A Dong with a luminous nose’.

 

The third group in contrast to the others was selected according to its interest in arts and crafts. In keeping with the school’s Business and Enterprise status, this phase took on a more business-like approach. Pupils responded to a brief which stated the required images for each sequence and specified time frames; this activity required very close listening to the musical settings and an understanding of pacing, as the pupils had to adapt their production of the artwork to specific time lines. This group was extremely productive, and responded well to the structured format of the workshops.

 

For all three groups, the project facilitated presentation of the matter of cultural, social and geographical diversity in an attractive, approachable and structured way; the groups engaged with the basic principles of musical fusion and musique concrète as well as aspects of non-western and modernist classical styles.

 

 

School pupils’ responses

 

On the whole, pupils responded well throughout the activity, though there were strikingly different dynamics amongst the groups which required quite different approaches to management and embracing their creativity.

 

Phase II of our project workshops suggest that improving pupils’ general attitudes towards aspects of non-musical curricula is achievable even when using music that many adults perceive as highly challenging, and for that reason often dismiss as too challenging for the chosen demographic.

 

Reports from the school’s Head of Arts Section mentioned that pupil behaviours and attitudes had ‘turned around’ as a result of the activity. The point here is not so much that music changed the pupils’ lives, but that the music and its background provided the stimulus for engagement with artforms, media and technology, which potentially provided a focus for some individuals to improve their sense of self-belief and how they relate to others. In other words the work as presented in this phase proved an effective agent for a certain level of social reform.

 

As the project took place over a few years, and due to some students being busy with GCSE examinations, not all of those students who were engaged in the project’s workshop stages were present at the premiere with live orchestra. However, 10 pupils, along with two members of staff were present and the pupils, when questioned about the event, spoke of being ‘inspired’ to develop their own works of art, whether through animation, film or music. Most notable also at this final stage was the pupils’ positive reaction to the live music, and it demonstrated (as we suspected) that with sufficient effort and resource, difficult, contemporary classical styles of music can be demystified and, moreover, enjoyed, by pupils who do not necessarily have privileged backgrounds. The pupils showed a greater level of ‘open-earedness’ than one might perhaps expect given existing research that suggests openness to music other than that experienced in childhood begins to decrease typically from the age of 9.[1]

 

Although a full appreciation of the project’s long-term impact is difficult to ascertain, the early responses suggest that a statistical analysis of medium-term impact may provide the basis for fruitful future study. Current systems do not allow for such information to be easily gathered; due to important privacy regulations we are reliant on schools maintaining contact with, and being able to gather the necessary information from, former pupils. This sort of information gathering is also beyond the remit or capacity of the school and is dependent on goodwill from the (former) pupils themselves.

 

 

How might the project have been done differently

 

The project took longer than anticipated due to the difficulties of availability amongst key contributors (including the animator, editor and studio editing facility). The logistical difficulties of bringing together many different professionals and the competing demands and commitments of those professionals make it difficult to see how the drawing out of the project could have been prevented.

 

Some positives arose from the length of the process. Ideas were able to gestate and transform; the project continued to evolve throughout each phase. One of the difficulties was finding a way to include each pupil’s contribution in the final film, but this was achieved. Some inconsistencies in style resulted, but this was used in a positive way to convey ‘child jumbly’ perceptions within the diegesis of the film.

 

Support from the school was very good indeed. However, from the perspective of external professionals coming into a school, it would have been easier to lead the groups and therefore been even more productive within the available time if members of supervising staff were a little more willing to step in when individual pupils become unsettled or disruptive. Having engaged in some spin-off projects using the completed Lear Settings film, it seems that this is not peculiar to any individual school; the tendency to stand back and leave disciplinary action to the visitor and to allow things to become unsettled seems commonplace both within primary and secondary education institutions, including those schools outside CPs remit (our spin-off projects have confirmed this). In future, it would be helpful if we, as visiting workshop leaders, made explicit the disciplinary roles and actions required from the supervising internal member of staff; this may help to improve the culture of partnership engagement.

 

A positive which we would hope to encourage more of is when members of internal supervising staff are actively involved in the creative process, i.e. alongside/with the pupils. This spirit of working together, or alongside, towards a common goal helped to break down barriers, and seemed to increase confidence, commitment and productivity, especially amongst those pupils of shorter attention span, and encouraged a culture of shared activity rather than one of imposed pressure.

 

If we were to do a similar project again we would want to try to set up with the school an evaluation process that can secure feedback on longer term impacts well in advance. We would also plan the project specifically as a project to run over a number of years. Nonetheless, we do feel that the basic model of supporting workshop activity provided an effective balance of allowing the self-development of pupils and the generation of material that can be reworked. We also genuinely feel that the process encouraged aspiration, achievable goals and understanding of methods and skills that can lead to the achievement of those goals.

 

 

 

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[1] Gembris, H. (2002). The development of musical abilities. In R. Colwell & C. Richardson (Eds.), The New Handbook of Music Teaching and Learning (pp. 487–508). New York: Oxford University Press.