This year the youth were introduced to basic camera and photography skills, documentary production and various types of animation. The youth were each given an iPod Touch, which they used to document their student life and create their own animations.
This was the second year of the project and the last year at Juniper School. This year the students used their skills to make a full documentary with the singular theme of human rights. The human rights theme was selected as the students traveled to Winnipeg at the end of their school year where they visited the newly opened Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
In year three of the Digital Lodge project the participating youth start high school at R.D. Parker Collegiate. This year the students are focusing on developing their skills in using the art of film to tell fictional stories that they have written themselves.
The students this year started their year recreating a scene from Beetlejuice with the help of Winnipeg-based actor Darcy Fehr. For the rest of the year the students worked with filmmaker Darryl Nepinak on a music video for the Tribe Called Red song "How I feel" featuring Leonard Sumner and Shad. They released their video at the end of the year at a school assembly.
In the 5th year of the project the students focused on learning how to edit their video work. They scripted, shot and edited short Heritage Minute videos as part of their history class. At the end of the year they worked on a music video for Iskwé's song The Unforgotten ft. Tanya Tagaq. The year ended with a screening of their work at Cinematheque in Winnipeg. The students answered questions from the audience post-screening.
The final year of the project had the students focus on creating their own short animations from start to finish. Working with filmmaker Rhayne Vermette, the students built their own animation stand, and then spent the year developing and completing their short films. In June the students screened a compilation of their work from over the last six years.