A high-stakes Olympic race that results with no winner…A scientific experiment proving that yes, pigs can actually fly…
These scenarios — and many more — were dreamed up by pediatric patients at a local hospital and then written, acted out and animated by Drexel students. The finished projects were then screened at Drexel as part of the “2018 Patient Film Festival,” to the delight of Drexel Dragons and the young patients and their families.
This performance project grew out of “Story Medicine,” a community-based learning class taught by Nomi Eve, an assistant teaching professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of English and Philosophy.
The students — drawn from multiple disciplines across the University — wrote plays and then performed them on-camera for shows that were then broadcast throughout the hospital. Children receiving treatment could participate in the show, but the collaborative marked the first time that they worked with Dragons to create and storyboard their own original stories and watch them come alive through both live action and 3-D immersive motion-capture films.
The children’s stories were animated through Eve’s new partnership with Nick Jushchyshyn, program director of animation, visual effects and immersive media in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. The children’s four animated films were born out of two classes that were held during the fall 2017 term.
“These are kids for whom a lot of enrichment opportunities are out of reach because of their health challenges,” Eve says. “But they have incredible imaginations and know how to use them! Knowing that we may have made some days a bit better for them is an awesome feeling.”