When Sheumas Penny told his instructor about his idea for a short animated film, “My teacher thought I was crazy; in fact, my fellow students thought I was out there for trying.” Topics : Nova Scotia Community College , Sydney Academy , National Film Board , Sydney
Still, Penny (known as Ché, pronounced Shay to his friends back in hometown Sydney) went ahead with his idea and the finished project, “Von Bekrem,” is to be shown at the Atlantic Film Festival in a program of short films on Sunday, Sept. 18.
Penny says he has been interested in filmmaking for a long time. He made short stop motion movies with a small camera that he describes as “a lot of demos to see how far I could get with certain techniques — mostly just to learn a lot.”
As a student at Sydney Academy, Penny acted in three video productions (“Zombie Romeo,” “It’s About Vincent,” and “The Ghost of Nelly Flynn”) created by Maynard Morrison’s drama students.
All three films were screened at the local cineplex and Penny says, “It’s definitely a confidence booster to have your stuff seen in front of an audience on the big screen.”
After graduating high school, Penny studied film arts (“the logical next step,” he says) for two years at the Nova Scotia Community College’s Dartmouth Waterfront Campus. “Van Bekrem” was created as a project for his final year.
“It’s about a guy (Alex Belkam) late for a date and trying to get there before the girl (Lara James) leaves,” he says.
“Van Bekram” was inspired by Norman McLaren’s famous National Film Board short, “Neighbours” (Penny used its music to help edit his film), that used live actors in a form of stop motion called “pixilation.”
“There’s animation in pretty much every frame,” Penny explains. “Shooting took two days and the animation took three weeks for a film a little over two minutes long.”
The film has an original score by Matt Claridge with a contribution from Penny’s uncle, Doug Taylor. Noah Stevens produced it for Anomaly Productions.
After being urged by his fellow students to submit it to the Atlantic Film Festival, Penny did just that.
Penny’s next project is a “tongue in cheek” documentary called “Grub Mall” about the Sydney shopping venue.
“I would like to make a feature film — that’s the goal of everybody. But there’s always what you like to watch and what you’re good at making. I’m not sure where I’m at right now.”
Ken Chisholm lives in Sydney and has written plays, songs, reviews, magazine articles. He can be reached at kchisholm@auracom.com.
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