The Pirates of Pancake Island animation team in action: (L to R) Jeanne Flanagan, Bill Trudell, Melitta King, and Shannon Daly.

By Michelle Cooper

Since 2005 Somerville Community Access Television  has won the National Alliance for community media award six times. This year it was for best animation film by non-professionals. Never mind all the other awards they have received for being a great community access television center. The winner this year was Pirates of Pancake Island by Jeanne Flanagan, Bill Trudell, Melitta King, and Shannon Daly.

When asked what brought this idea together, Melitta King said, “We talked about ideas each of us had, what we wanted out of the class and looked at the materials that Jessica Barnthouse (who was teaching the class) had for us to work with.  Then it turned out that Jeanne had brought the legos with her to the first class and Bill Trudell had the packet of plastic spiders in his pocket.

“From there we easily decided we could do a pirate story and somehow tie in the spiders. Each of us added something to the project. I wrote up the ideas we had into a script and added that with two lego sharks we should have one swim by – while another shark would sneak up and eat the first pirate who dies. Jeanne went to the Olympics for crew – so she made sure the rowing in the piece looked real.

“Jeanne also made the piece of fabric that we used for the water. Bill came up with the idea of pancakes for the island and he created the music for the piece. Shannon was a Masters student at Emerson at the time. She has great organization and excellent editing skills.”

How long did it take to put together? “The animating took most of the class.” Said King. “We finished editing the piece after the class ended. The best part was that each of the four of us was really an important part of the process. The piece wouldn’t be as good as it is without all of our efforts.”

This creative work is done with a few legos and a stack of pancakes. The video has some great humor in it and it is not what you expect, which makes it fun to watch. Two lego men pirates set sail to look for buried treasure. Do they find it? You will have to watch to find out. You can find the link on SCAT’s website www.access-scat.org.

Since I was so enthralled with this piece, I decided to go to the source and take a tour of SCATV to see what this place was all about. Wendy Blom, who is the Executive Director, was nice enough to show me around and tell me about the place. She showed me each room they have including the control room, and the community conference room. This conference room is available for any member of Somerville to use as long as it is available. They have also have Internet access and plenty of resources to use to create films. SCATV has been around since 1983. They are the oldest access television center in Massachusetts. They have so many great resources there. If you have an interest in creating films or art, this is the place to go.