Ultralab the learning, technology and research centre based at Anglia Polytechnic University in Chelmsford, Essex have been working over many years in the field of Digital Creativity. Ultralab’s ‘SummerSchool project was initially formed in mid 2000, in association with SEEVEAZ which stands for the South East of England Virtual Education Action Zone. SEEVEAZ had a five year life span, and has now closed its doors.
Ultralab ran the SummerSchool programme for SEEVEAZ, one of the partner schools was Saffron Walden County High School, initially represented by Dunstan Bertschinger and now managed by Patrick Gordon.
Patrick sourced funding from Essex County Council to continue the work in digital creativity that Saffron Walden County High School has been pioneering, and asked Ultralab to set a summer challenge for the young people to take part in over the summer.
A selection of students from SWCHS came to Ultralab along with year six pupils from the local partner primary schools in order to explore with Ultralab the following Apple based applications: iMovie, Garage Band, iStopMotion and Comic Life.
The young people were at Ultralab for five hours and in that time produced films, and comic pages.
iMovie was used by the young people to tell the story of ‘The Lost Romance Between Two Shoes’ a challenge we set people of all ages, to tell a simple story, however they like….
Here are the films the young people produced in the hour (their first ever iMovie films):
Group 1’s Lost Romance Between Two Shoes Movie
Group 2’s Lost Romance Between Two Shoes Movie
Group 3’s Lost Romance Between Two Shoes Movie
Group 4’s Lost Romance Between Two Shoes Movie
Group 5’s Lost Romance Between Two Shoes Movie
Before the above movies were made, together we learned iMovie in 10 minutes. If you would like to see the movie we made together, to try out iMovie, Click Here
Next the groups were challenged to use Comic Life, a very cool application. Their challenge was to tell ‘The Other Side of the Story’ using images from the ‘Lost Romance Between Two Shoes’ movie that they produced earlier.
Here are the Comic Life comics each group produced (sadly group 1’s machine crashed as they saved):
Group 2:

Group 3:

Group 4:

Group 5:

Big big thanks to Patrick Millwood, for his involvement and support in the day, an expert in the various technologies and software we were using. Thanks also to the young people and staff of the schools for their involvement in the project, you are all really creative.
An enjoyable day. The young people have been challenged over the summer with an Ultralab style challenge to create the next generation of comic, and here is the exciting challenge …
Download: Ultralab 2005 Summer Challenge: Twist of Fate

As ever, this challenge is open internationally, and a website will be created containing International Comic pages!
….or read the challenge here below:

Twist of Fate :: SummerSchool 2005


Your summer challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to
create the next generation of comic. Each group (of no
more than 5) will have a page in the completed
‘international’ comic, called ‘Twist of Fate’.


This is not a paper comic, it is cooler than that!


What you’ve read above can be translated as you see fit,
and is entirely up to you but you need to tell a story, a
twist of fate, and tell it in a new and exciting way in your
comic windows.


Each of the comic windows is something cool, each of
the nine windows on your groups page should be a
combination of film, animation, still photography and even
a sound or song….what’s certain is that each window
will be bursting with creativity and the story will unfold in
a very cool way.


No copywrite music can be used, you have to make your
own if you are going to use any! No two stories or
characters in this comic are the same.


Each ‘window’ of your story (9 in total) needs to be given
to Ultralab in Full Quality DV format or back on DV tape.


Good luck, as ever, there is no right answer. Be creative.


P.S. If your work is good enough, it will be put on an
International DVD.
To find out more about our projects in digital creativity, visit the Ultralab SummerSchool website.