The second stage of The Model Village Project took place on Wednesday 15th June at Michaelston Community College, Ely – a short distance from the site of the CAER Heritage Project 2016 community dig at Michaelston Medieval Village.
The young people, all from year 8, were given an introductory talk by Dr David Wyatt and CAER lead artist Paul Evans. During this they reviewed and reintroduced some of the topics dealt with in the first workshops at the The Glamorgan Archives (see Dusty’s First World War and The Model Village Part 1) along with an introduction to the concept of Utopia: an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable – or nearly perfect – qualities.
The young people then divided into two groups and group one set off to visit the archaeological excavation at Michaelston Medieval Village; to learn more about medieval life, participate in the dig alongside community volunteers and examine some of the finds.
Meanwhile group two took part in a Medieval-themed version of the animation workshop that took place in The Model Village Part 1.
After a brief collaborative drawing exercise the young people developed their own individual cartoon characters – inhabitants for the Michaelston Medieval Village – and worked on scripts for their characters. These characters were then scanned into iPads and imported into a user-friendly app that allowed them to create short animation sequences. Photographs of Cosmeston Medieval Village, sourced from Wikicommons, were used as backgrounds or scenery for these sequences.
The young people then carefully rehearsed their scripts and recorded their films/animation sequences, making the characters move in rhythm with their words.
Because of heavy rain the second group did not get a chance to visit the site, but this did give us time to give some serious thought to ideas of Utopia: what life might be like in a perfect world, and how Utopian ideas might apply to medieval villages – e.g Michaelston – or garden villages – e.g. Ely. The young people wrote some amazing reflections on their thoughts about this topic, which were recorded by Viv Thomas. One of these recordings has been used in the film; a beautiful summary/conclusion that helps reinforce connections between the substantial range of ideas explored throughout the project.
Selected animation sequences from this workshop have been featured in The Model Village film, along with an interview with Dr Stephanie Ward made at the Glamorgan Archive, and film sequences from the Ely estate made by local film maker Viv Thomas and Jon Harrison.
You can check out the finished film HERE.
All photos © Viv Thomas 2016.
CAER Heritage Hidden Hillfort 