Former Teacher Now in China Collaborates with Huntington Students
Although he resigned his position as a Huntington High School art teacher in June 2006, David Gran is back in the spotlight and still making an impact here, even though he now lives and works in Shanghai, China, thousands of miles from Long Island.
The former Huntington faculty member is spearheading a video arts project known as Rotoball that has attracted schools from around the world, including Huntington. According to the project’s promotional website, a “Rotoball is a black ball that transforms into something different for each person who comes into contact with it.” The initiative “is a collaborative rotscoped animation project for high school students, and a unique opportunity to connect with students who are geographically distant.”
The original Rotoball dates to 2005 when Huntington students in Mr. Gran’s video art classes inaugurated the initiative. The current project is ongoing and will run through Friday, March 7 when all projects must be sent to either Mr. Gran or Ms. Swan. The videos will premier on Friday, April 18 at the Shanghai Student Film Festival and on You Tube!
Mr. Gran’s exit from Huntington came a little bit sooner than he originally expected. “My wife and I decided that we wanted to live abroad for a little while, although we really weren't in a rush,” Mr. Gran explained in a recent e-mail interview. “We went to a job fair planning only on taking a job if we felt it was something we couldn't turn down, and ended up here. Shanghai sounded like an exciting place to live, so we jumped on the opportunity.” He is now working as a technology integration and art teacher at the Shanghai American School’s Puxi Campus.
In the weeks prior to his move overseas, Mr. Gran had an opportunity to work with current Huntington video arts teacher Heather Swan while both taught classes in the OOMPAH summer arts program. “We talked about doing some kind of overseas collaboration on a video project” he explained. “This year, I've started a video class at the [Shanghai] high school, which is largely modeled on the class that we built at Huntington.”
Once settled in China, Mr. Gran sent an e-mail message to Ms. Swan, suggesting the pair collaborate on the Rotoball project since it’s built on just such collaboration. “Each student works on 15 seconds of an animation that gets stitched together with all the others, to create one long 'chain' of animations. The students animate themselves catching a ball, transforming it into something else and interacting with it, and passing it on. Heather has continued to do that project with her kids to great success and so it was something that was a good starting point for us.”
The project carries a set of very specific rules. The animations must be exactly 15 seconds in length and can be as creative as the students desire, but each one must contain footage of them catching the ball from the left side of the screen, the ball transforming in some way, the student interacting with the transformed object, the ball returning to normal and the ball leaving the right hand side screen.
Schools from a variety of national and international locales are participating in the project. “So far, we have 12 schools involved from around the world,” Mr. Gran said. “Most are located across the U.S., but there’s also us in Shanghai and schools in London and Christchurch, New Zealand. That means we'll have over 200 student videos, and the end product could be over an hour long, which is pretty big considering that it’s made up of 15 second clips.”
In addition to the Huntington High School and the Shanghai American School, participants include Ealing & West London College in London, England, Union City High School in Pennsylvania, Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti School in Christchurch, New Zealand, Charleston Catholic High School in West Virginia, Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax,Virginia, Lee School in Fort Myers, Florida, Monarch High School in Coconut Creek, Florida, North Middle School in Everett, Washington, The Haverford School in Philadelphia and Cave Spring High School in Roanoke, Virginia.
Mr. Gran has held preliminary discussions with a fellow Shanghai teacher who works with an organization that erects schools in Tibetan communities. “If possible, I want to encourage participants to sell copies of the final video to raise money to build a school,” he said. “This organization will apparently match a $6,000 donation, which is enough for them to build another school. I'm looking into other alternatives, as there are plenty of charitable organizations here in Shanghai.”
More information is available on the Rotoball initiative on the website Mr. Gran maintains at http://www.carrotrevolution.com/rotoball or by contacting him via e-mail at david.gran@saschina.org.
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