Pupils get their own film premiere

Children from Princetown Primary School have enjoyed a unique opportunity to work with Dartmoor National Park and Animated Exeter to create a spooky animation based on one of Dartmoor’s legends.

The animation contains everything you need in a good film – a nasty witch, a hero and a spooky location.

The production began with Ashley Thorpe from Animated Exeter running three workshops with the Year 1 and 2 students, and together with their teachers, working through all the different stages of the film, including the storyboard, making the characters, writing the script, filming each frame and recording the sound effects.  The result - a 4 minute animated film called The Witch of Vixen Tor.

Ali Hirst, Headmistress of Princetown Primary School said “We were delighted to be given this opportunity of making an animated film.  It was a really interesting project for the children and they learnt lots of new techniques.  It looks great on the big screen.”

The children attended their own film premiere at the National Park Visitor Centre, Princetown, and the film will continue to be shown throughout the year in the Centre’s spooky cinema.

But that’s not the end of the story. In addition to the continued screening of the film at the Centre, Dartmoor National Park has ensured a legacy of film production at the school by providing them with their own animation software to enable them to make more films.