Lauren Harkrader '02 and Naomi Irie '02 set up camera equipment at Eastwood Elementary School for a collaborative video project between College and elementary-school students. Oberlin Students Help Eastwood First and Second Graders Animate the Alphabet Photographs and text by Sue Kropp
		NOVEMBER 5 , 2001--For students in Rian Brown-Orso's advanced video class, fall break was the perfect opportunity to test the skills they had acquired during the first half of the semester. Brown-Orso, assistant professor of new media, and five students from her class visited Eastwood Elementary School, where they filmed first and second graders for a stop-motion animation video. "My son is in the open room at Eastwood, and when I first met his teachers they expressed an interest in me working on a video project with the children," says Brown-Orso. "We based the project on an animated film and had each child in the class animate a letter for the camera by using little blocks." When finished, the video will feature an animated alphabet created and narrated by students at Eastwood Elementary. A copy of the video will be presented to the school. Students in Brown-Orso's class who helped with the project included Lauren Harkrader, Naomi Irie, Aleigh Braken, Sarah Houghland and Bernd Weissenbach. Rian Orso-Brown explains the filming procedure to a first-grade student. Harkrader coaxes a camera-shy student through her lines.
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