Betws Bards 2005/6

This is a project very close to my heart as it combines animation and medieaval Welsh history, two of my favourite subjects. Funded by Communities First as part of a local heritage initiative I was asked to make an animation based on the life of a bard who lived in Betws during the Fifteenth century.

Together with local historian Felicity Michaelides we ran workshops with year 6 pupils at Betws Primary School. The children learnt about the flourishing bardic culture of medieaval Betws which was a very important place at that time. They then designed beautiful characters and backgrounds for the film which I am in the process of animating. The children also wrote poems of their own in the bardic style and then performed them on the ancient bardic mound outside Betws’s twelfth century church, accompanied by a harp player from the Welsh College of Music and Drama and myself, Melissa and Felicity dressed up in medieaval costume.

I feel this project is hugely important for the local community as the area has a rich cultural and historical heritage stretching back thousands of years, much of which is largely unknown to people. The finished animation will be placed on a local heritage website and it is my intention to also enter it into animation festivals. You will also be able to see it here as soon as it is launched.