David Ilko was in a staff meeting at Woodland Hills High School when he was informed the superintendent wanted to see him.
“That’s never a good thing when you get called down to the principal’s office,” Mr. Ilko recalled with a laugh.
He wasn’t in trouble. Instead, he was given a proposal. Wonder Media, an animation production company that specializes in creating films with contributions by middle school and high school students from around the country, was working on a new project. Wonder Media CEO Terry Thoren has an extensive history of working in animation in Hollywood, including the classic Nickelodeon cartoon “Rugrats” and the early years of “The Simpsons.” They wanted Woodland Hills to participate.
Mr. Ilko was on board. He selected junior Edie Tucker, sophomore Jordan Coleman, sophomore Keon Hawes, and freshman Henry Staszel to work on the project.
That was in late September. Nearly nine months later, the animated film they worked on is ready for its premiere. “Finding Alice in Wonderland” will debut on Friday, May 22 in the Thomas G. Crone Auditorium at Woodland Hills High School. Mr. Ilko and the students will be joined by their peers from nine high schools in the Pittsburgh area, as well as invited guests, to see the final product for the first time.
“I am very proud of these four students and what they’ve done. I don’t know if they understand what they did,” Mr. Ilko said. “I think they’re starting to, now that it’s coming to a close. I’m super proud to say that I was part of this and helped coach them through this and be part of their team.”
Each participating school was tasked with creating a several minute scene in the film. They wrote original scripts, designed storyboards, created the background artwork, recorded voiceovers, created background artwork, recorded voiceovers and directed voiceover talent, contributed sound design and sound effects, and more.
Wonder Media gave them the general concept and provided extensive feedback throughout the project, but it was the students’ ideas that took center stage.
“They gave us a theme, which was, ‘You are not alone,” Tucker said. “We started building a vague outline of stuff we thought might happen, and then we collaborated on the script.”
In Mr. Ilko’s television production classes, the students typically focus on commercials and public service announcements, using iMovie to edit their productions. They had some experience in writing voiceovers, but not as much with dialogue. They also had some experience in creating storyboards. But this was a new challenge on a vastly different scale.
“At times it felt like a lot, but mostly it was in chunks and pieces,” Hawes said.
“There was usually a lot of work to do, but we split it up enough that it didn’t really feel like that,” Staszel said.
“It was a lot of work, but it was a lot of good work,” Tucker added.
Coleman drew much of the background artwork for the group’s scene.
“I primarily focused on the deep woods, where it’s super dark,” Coleman said. “A lot of the inspiration came from old ‘Scooby Doo.’ That’s why there is a lot of purple and blue in it.”
It was a change from his usual artwork, and the Wonder Media team’s immediate approval of the design made him excited.
“I don’t usually focus on backgrounds and stuff,” he said. “I usually focus on characters, so it was different for me to do something like that.”
The process was detailed. They typically met with representatives from Wonder Media every other week over Zoom, depending on the stage of the production. Their primary contact was Jason Richards, who previously worked at Pixar. Though he was demanding and firm, he was fair and a valuable resource.
“He was a good teacher,” Staszel said.
“I was amazed to learn that he worked on shows that I used to watch,” Hawes said.
The storyboarding process was especially important. Not only did it help the students plot out the story for their scene, but it helped the Wonder Media animators begin to do the actual animation. The students had direct control over their characters’ animations, which they detailed through a program called Storymaker. The program created a generic character that could express different emotions.
“This is a surprised look, this is a happy look, this is scratching head,” Mr. Ilko explained. “We had to go through and pick out all of that stuff for each of the characters in the scene.”
The students also had to make sure their scene left enough flexibility for the Wonder Media team to stitch it together with what the other schools were creating. Each scene was created in isolation so that the students would be surprised by the final film.
“We had to use the outline to follow up on the story,” Hawes said. “If one school was doing something, we would have to make something that connects to it so it goes together and flows.”
In the early stages of the project, the students were able to watch as their story started to come to life.
“The people at Wonder Media started to take the audio clips we had recorded and started putting them where they belong in the script,” Mr. Ilko said. “Then they started taking some of the direction of what we were doing with the animation and we would see the characters move on screen and put the characters in front of our storyboards. Each step, we were in awe. We just did that.”
“It kind of felt like our baby taking its first steps,” Tucker added.
To bring Alice and the rest of the characters to life, the quartet tapped into the talent in the Woodland Hills Performing Arts Department to become the voiceover cast. Elizabeth Ansell plays Alice, Sabrina Bender is Cheshire Cat, Cayden Bristow plays Rabbit, Hayden Crum is the Queen of Hearts, Olivia Davidson is Caterpillar, and Richard Masters is the King of Hearts.
Directing their classmates was a new challenge for the production team.
“It was honestly kind of awkward at first,” Tucker said. “The guy who voiced the king is Richard, and I know him. He was literally in a musical with me two years ago, and now I’m telling him how to talk. But he was very responsive to what we asked of him.”
“Yeah, that was strange,” Staszel added. “We’d say, ‘I think you should say it like this,’ and it felt so condescending.”
For a group of underclassmen, taking on that level of leadership and control was a new and valuable experience.
“It showed that being a leader can sometimes be very stressful, and it makes you nervous,” Hawes said. “But you can overcome the nervousness and become more confident.”
The other interesting dynamic was working with Mr. Ilko, who took the approach of being a teammate rather than a teacher. Every idea was equal, no matter who it came from, which took the students aback at times.
“When we all met at this group here, I’m not the teacher and they’re not the students,” Mr. Ilko said. “We’re all employees of Wonder Media. We’re our own department, and all five of us have an equal share in this department. That was neat to see evolve since late September.”
“Mr. Ilko would ask me questions about what to do, and it was like, ‘You’re my teacher! This is crazy!” Tucker said. “But it gave me a lot of confidence, specifically because I want to go into film. It gave me confidence that I can do it and that I can go into that field. But it also gave me confidence to push myself more in circumstances when there is some pressure.”
Now, the upcoming premiere on May 22 has them excited and a little nervous.
“It’s definitely exciting compared to other smaller stuff,” Staszel said.
“I’m really excited to see what other schools have done and for my parents to see it,” Tucker said. “They’re starting to think this isn’t real. I swear it’s real!”
