ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.02 - MAY 2000

Bringing Animation to the Inner-City

by Leo F. Hobaica, Jr.

The kids of the fall 1999 CAP Program. © CalArts Community Arts Partnership (CAP) and Inner-City Arts Animation Program for Youth.

I am one of those fortunate people who have a job that is a win/win situation. In fact, it is a component that is designed into the most fundamental architecture of my job. I actually know of no one who is not "winning" in our Community Arts Partnership (CAP) animation workshops at Inner-City Arts in downtown Los Angeles.

By way of introduction, my commitment to the classroom has a 30-plus year history. I have taught at all levels within the system, from pre-school, through elementary settings, high school to the graduate seminar. In all of those years and situations, this particular program is worth a bit more scrutiny and praise. In my estimation, the CAP/Inner-City Arts project has a solid rightness that is unarguable.

The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Community Arts Partnership (CAP) connects off-campus arts educational sites with the discourse that happens on campus. Spearheaded by the very capable and nourishing guidance of Glenna Avila, interested CalArts students elect to be the hands-on teachers at various partner sites in Los Angeles. Driven by a leaning toward the possibility of teaching as a career, the love of their artistic discipline, the desire to share and the need for spare pocket change, these students, from all disciplines in the arts, have been able to get their students to produce some vibrant completed projects.

Students get the chance to teach young children what they have learned. © CalArts Community Arts Partnership (CAP) and Inner-City Arts Animation Program for Youth.

Elementary Animation
Twice a week at Inner-City Arts in Los Angeles, for example, a van from CalArts arrives with the teaching students, 30 minutes before the younger students. Bundled in their distended satchels are animated films to be shown, lesson plans from the "master teacher" for that particular day, audio-visual aids to help further the presentation for the exercises taught, etc. In other words, all the things that a trained professional educator would have in place. This particular animation curriculum is designed for the 5th and 6th grade classes that we work with from the Los Angeles Unified School District though Inner-City Arts. The CalArts students, culled from both the Character Animation and Experimental Animation programs at the Institute, demonstrate how to make a zoetrope strip, morphing, flip books, draw on film, story-board, cut-out puppetry, backgrounds and even use the "LunchBox" for capturing motion. By the end of the 12-week semester, the group of 30 will have collaboratively produced a 3 to 5-minute animated piece with characters, backdrops and story line. A personal copy of the videotape will be taken home to mom and dad as well.

Graduation from the workshop is an equally wonderful experience for all of us. Usually held in a public setting within their school, and with an invited audience from other classes, as well as their proud moms and dads and principals, each young graduate is called to the podium, handed a certificate, given a copy of the film, a T-shirt and a hug or handshake from one of us. Then the lights go out, the projector switch is hit, and the premier begins.
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