The Tortoises' Idea
Drawn/computer animation, UK, 2002
Directors: Schoolchildren of St. Matthew's Primary School
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Running time: 6 minutes
Short Synopsis
An adaptation of a Nigerian creation myth that explains the order of the world, animated and recorded by schoolchildren.
Long synopsis
This colourful and vibrant animation was inspired by and is based on a Nigerian creation myth, published in 'The Orchard Book of Creation Myths', edited by Margaret Mayo and Louise Brierley, Orchard Books.
At the beginning of the world, the Creator decides that everything - the tortoises, the man and the woman, the stones, every creature and plant - will live forever. But one day the tortoises have an idea. They decide that they would be happier if they had little tortoises to care for. They go to the temple to see the Creator, a huge red and yellow flower, and ask whether they can also have children. The Creator explains that if they had children they would have to die or there would be too many tortoises in the world. The tortoises accept this law and the next morning a lot of little tortoises appear.
When the man and the woman see the little tortoises, they also think of having their own children, so they follow the tortoises' example and visit the Creator, with the same result.
Only the stones refuse to change their nature and because they have no children, they never die.
Background information
About the film and the film-makers
The Tortoises' Idea was made entirely by the schoolchildren of St Matthew's Primary School.
The short was created as part of a project, which brought Year 6 pupils of St. Matthew's Primary School into Parkside Community College (both in Cambridge) to make computer animations, involving the professional expertise of an animator, Louise Spraggon, and a composer, Andrew Lovett. After the pupils were introduced to the history and processes of animation and the role of music in film, they learned about narrative and film language. All this enabled them to then write a script, to draw the storyboard and all the images, to animate the film, and also to produce the soundtrack, doing their own music and voice-over.
The project has been running for four years and is now a Cambridge Film Consortium project, part-funded by Regional Arts Lottery Programme, through Screen East, and has been extended to involve more than six primary schools.
For a detailed diary of the project please visit www.futurelab.org.uk
Teaching materials and additional materials
The teaching materials have been developed by practising teachers to provide a springboard for your own work with your pupils. Feel free to use and adapt them appropriate to your pupils' needs.
The additional materials, provided by the film-makers, can be used to develop your work with the film and deepen pupils' understanding of the process of film-making.
