The other night I had a little whirlwind session exploring content on Vimeo and discovered some fantastic pieces of work, including this lovely short animation called Paraphernalia. It is a 3rd year film made by Sabrina Cotungo who is studying at The California Institute of the Arts – however her film was made at Gobelins, l’école de l’image in Paris.
Sabrina Cotungo describes her film as
The story of an anemic little recluse of a girl who makes a friend at the expense of her ceiling.
Paraphernalia from Sabrina Cotugno on Vimeo.
What strikes me about the little story is the openings it presents for a class to explore in terms of their narrative literacy unit, the questions that could be asked about the plot and the characters.
- Why is she all alone?
- Where are her family?
- Where was the gentleman heading?
- Why did he crash?
- Why had he invented such a wonderful flying machine?
Also a class could spend time working on the dialogue that takes place between our characters. It is conveniently silent and we might encourage our pupils to explain the emotions we see on their faces, to play these scenes out in some drama and then to perhaps develop the written dialogue.
What do you like about the film and how do you see it being used with your classes?