Duration: 5:30 Size: 8.95 Kb fps: 12

Hollingworth Histories - Cotton Research by Rhiannon Barber, Lewis Burgess, Sam Farmer, Calum Gosling, Brittany Hopwood, Andrew Irving, Hannah Mason, Samantha Norris, Emily Osbourne, Rhys Stratton, Georgia Taylor Animated by Steven Coxhill, James Doodson, Aaron Fogarty, Amber Renshaw, Connor Sherwood, Pagan Young Head animator: Adam Freeman Head of design: Jonathan Keating Chief model maker: Laura Howarth Head of photography: Jake Fairbrother Set design: Alistair Bland Best boy: Ben Taylor Story lines: Aimee Bennett Directed by Pat Irwin With thanks to Joyce Powell, Paddy Molloy and Buzz Hawkins Produced at Longdendale Community Language College 2008

The story is an amalgamation of three aspects of the cotton industry - The Slave's Story, The Millworker's Story and The Millowner's Story - all explained and narrated by a cotton weevil. To investigate the cotton industry the young people undertook some research. This involved: a trip to the Lowry Theatre to see King Cotton, the story of a Lancashire mill worker by Jimmy McGovern. (This was very exciting. Some of their comments on the production can be seen here.) a trip to Wigan Pier museum, where they saw cotton being spun and working machinery as well as a flavour of living conditions for nineteenth century working families. (Comments on the trip can be seen here). Glossop and District Historical Society was contacted and through them the club members were able to meet Joyce Powell, the local historian who wrote the book Longdendale in retrospect. Mrs Powell very kindly agreed to come into the school and talk to the animation club about the reality of life in Hollingworth in the days of the cotton industry. She also brought in a number of books, photographs and posters to act as visual inspiration. You can see examples here. Milltown Cloggies from Glossop lent the club some clogs so that the club members could try walking in them. The young people began to write their own stories about the cotton industry and to storyboard their ideas. Some of these are shown here. Paddy Molloy, a professional illustrator, helped the club members to organise their ideas into a number of small stories which are connected by a narrator. One of the small stories is called The Millworkers' Story. The backgrounds for this story were painted by club members and are shown here. Cotton is a stop frame animation and so to provide images for the characters young people dressed in Victorian costumes and took a series of photographs. Buzz Hawkins, the creator of The Bradshaws, worked with members of the club to produce music and sound effects for the animation. At the end of summer term 2008, a party was held to celebrate the end of filming.

"The reseaching and making the film was very educational and fun. It has helped me to develop skills and has been very enoyable" - Jake

"Making this animation was a great experience" - Aimee

"Making the Cotton animation was really fun... animating is brilliant" - Alistair

"Making the film was really fun but we had to take it seriously to get the animation finished" - Jonathan

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