Transcript
Nick: We’ll start in Washington D.C., where eight kids have five days to make a one-minute movie. On your marks, get set, go!
Ruth: What makes all animation work is moving things a little bit at a time, right?
Nick: The Lab School of Washington is a really cool place where kids with learning disabilities can use art to help them learn. These kids are going to tell us what it feels like to struggle with reading — and they’re gonna make a claymation movie about it!
Ruth: Your eyes blend those pictures together so it looks likes it’s moving, right? So that’s the way all animation works.
Madeleine: I’m Madeleine, and I’m eight years old.
Madeleine: I always felt left out. I always felt like I didn’t know anything at all about books. When it was time to get up an’ go to school, I kept on saying, “No, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go.”
Ruth: Our job this week is to try and figure out the idea that we’re gonna have for our film.
Nick: That’s Ruth. Man! What a nice teacher. I wish I’d had a teacher like that.
Ruth: I thought it might be helpful if we all tried to remember different things about when we were all learning to read.
Skyla: I went to school where absolutely everyone knew how to read.
Skyla: I’m Skyla and I’m gonna be 12 soon.
Skyla: Kids would make fun of me and the teacher would start yelling at me and send me to the principal’s office.
Ruth: In a film, in a movie, which is kind of a make believe thing, sometimes you can show what you wish you could have said to the teacher. What would you like to say to that teacher, to just tell her what she was, how she could treat you better?
Sam: Well, that she could try to teach us to read instead of just making us read things that we couldn’t read.
Sam: I’m Sam, and I’m 11.
Sam: Or at least don’t get mad at us if we mess up.
Ruth: If you were making a movie about a kid in a classroom — you — that’s right. Look at Oliver’s face. You could show that teacher getting more and more mad.
Skyla: Their face could turn red. There could be steam coming out of their ears.
Nick: They turn red. Or, like sweating. You could make them sweat.
Oliver: The teacher melted away to nothing. The kids have the rest of the millennium off!
Nick: Now it’s time for our filmmakers to get down to business. We’ve got to mold seven characters out of clay and create a full classroom set. Now, let’s go go go!
Nick: So — we’ve got the story, the set, and the characters. Now what do we need?
Nick: No, not lunch! We need sound!
Madeleine: John?
Nick: Did you really think those little lumps of clay were going to talk all by themselves?
Nick: And now, the voice of John played by Nick.
Nick: Uh, the other Nick.
Ruth: Now the teacher’s really mad, and she just said to you, “You should be able to read that easy word!” And you have to say — you’re kind of upset and you say, “I can’t.”
Nick: To get this right, Nick will have to do it over and over and over.
Nick (student): I can’t.
Nick: Grrrreat, Nick!
Nick: Do it again.
Nick (student): I, I, I can’t.
Nick: You ‘da man, Nick.
Nick: Do it again.
Nick (student): I can’t.
Nick: Nicky, baby. You’re beautiful, kid. You’re gorgeous. Don’t ever change.
Tony: Okay, go ahead and move her, just a little bit. Okay, move her head. That’s good.
Nick: Now it’s finally time to bring these little people to life. The kids have to take digital pictures of each tiny movement. And when they run the pictures together on the computer, it’ll look like a movie!
Tony: Does that sound good?
Sam: Yeah.
Ruth: Having learning disabilities isn’t the same as being stupid. Having a learning disability just means it might take you a little longer to do something, or you might have to do it a different way, but it has nothing to do with being stupid. Kids with learning disabilities have lots of different talents and can learn to do lots of different things and they just have to learn in a way that’s good for them.
Madeline: I’m eight, and sometimes I think I won’t read until I’m 18. But I know that will never happen.
Sam: If you’re having a really hard time, just step back and just think of what you’re having problems with and don’t get too frustrated, because if you get frustrated too easily, you’ll just get mad at yourself. And it’s not really your fault.
Madeleine: Sometimes, I’m like looking at the pictures and then like I look at the words and I just know I could do it. I just know I could do it. Then I start reading the book and sometimes I could finish the whole book, and it’s really great.
Nick: Now it’s time for the magic of animation. Introducing, an original film by Sam, Skyla, Nick, Miles, Katie, Madeline, Julia, and Oliver, Phew — From Zero to Hero!
Play movie
Teacher: Now who can read this first word? John?
John: Hmmmm…
Teacher: Hurry up!
Class: Hurry up! Come on!
Teacher: You should be able to read this easy word.
John: I…I…I can’t…
Teacher: I don’t think you’re trying. I’m getting very angry! [Head catches on fire.]
Class: Holy smokes! Ahh…the teacher’s on fire!
Alarm rings
John: I know what to do! [throws water on the teacher.]
Class: Yeah, John! You rock!
Nick: Get it? The teacher was all “wet.” Good job, guys. Let’s see that crazy part again!
Replay the fiery head/water bit
Meet the kids at the Lab School of Washington, D.C., a school designed especially for children with learning disabilities. Watch as the students create a claymation movie that vividly illustrates feelings about struggling to learn to read.