The Debut of 40,000 Young Filmmakers

June 21, 2011 10:37 AM

It’s produced by the Tate Museums in London, animated by Aardman Studios, and stars the vocal talents of David Walliams, Rik Mayall, and Catherine Tate -- and features the creative control of thousands of British kids. Coming soon, it’s The Itch Of The Golden Nit.

Created as part of London’s Cultural Olympiad, a four-year culture festival leading up to the 2012 Olympics, the film will be the culmination of the Tate Movie Project, a hands-on interactive program designed to teach children ages 5-13 about filmmaking and animation. Kids could contribute either by submitting drawings or story ideas to the project’s web site, or through visiting one of hundreds of drop-in workshops held throughout the UK; kids could also voting on each others’ ideas.

Nearly 40,000 children collaborated on casting choices, character creation and art, plot elements, and even sound effects to create the story of a magic louse who lives in the heart of the sun until he is kidnapped by Evil Queen Stella – but then escapes through the help of an ordinary kid named Beanie and a superhero named Captain Iron Ears, as well as some pirates and talking planets.

The Telegraph recently posted a making-of video on its web site, and the film premieres in Trafalgar Square on July 23.

posted by EmpressCallipygos (10 comments total)

Taters gonna tate.
posted by schmod at 10:53 AM on June 21, 2011

Hardcore Taters?
posted by kmz at 10:53 AM on June 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is what I love about Aardman. This is the kind of thing they started out doing, and even with all the success of Wallace & Gromit, they're still doing it. I remember when I first saw Going Equipped, and thinking "this is really different and amazing."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:26 AM on June 21, 2011

When I read about this, what charmed me was how tickled everyone was getting about just how flippin' weird the story was that the kids had come up with -- but also loving it, because it's weird in the fantastic way that only kids's imaginations can do. All the adults participating in this seemed to feel a combination of "this is completely awesome" and "where in the HELL did they come up with this stuff?" (...The making-of video has a clip from where David Tennant is in the studio to record his cameo as a pirate or something, and someone is describing the plot to him, and he asks, "....Were these kids on drugs???")
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:51 AM on June 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

what is taters?
posted by stenseng at 1:12 PM on June 21, 2011

This greatly amuses me. I can't wait to see the finished result!
posted by Kitteh at 1:15 PM on June 21, 2011

what is taters?

This podcast covers it.
posted by odinsdream at 1:16 PM on June 21, 2011

what is taters?

An in-joke born from a mis-speaking in an AskMe thread, which then got overdone to absolute death. Details here and clarified here, along with a plea to drop it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:23 PM on June 21, 2011

I guess I should have been more specific... What is taters, precious?
posted by stenseng at 4:31 PM on June 21, 2011

The combined cute output here should more than makeup any public resentment over their (awesome) annual prize.
posted by Theta States at 6:59 AM on June 22, 2011