How this B.C. filmmaking duo created a stop motion short film on the life of a 'Nakwaxda'xw Elder

A stop motion short film by two B.C. filmmakers is highlightingthe life of aNakwaxda'xw Elder and her experiences growing upnear Alert Bay, a villageoff the coast of Vancouver Island.

Tinyis directed by Ritchie Hemphill and animated byRyan Hach,longtime friends andfounders of the Vancouver Island-based animation studio, Bronfree Films.

The short film is based on the life of 'Nakwaxda'xw Elder Colleen Hemphill, Ritchie's mother.

In Tiny,Colleen, who spent much of her childhood living on a float house near Alert Bay a village on Cormorant Island, near the northeastern town of Port McNeill on Vancouver Island is featured telling stories about her relationships with family, the communityand nature.

To make the film, the duo interviewed Colleen over a six-hour period.

"Everything she said was engaging," said Ritchie Hemphill,who has been making stop motion films for sixyears.

"It was just a process of finding some sort of middle ground of what Ryan and I could physically pull off with our craft and finding some sort of arc by connecting various stories, kind of like using the raw materials of our history and creating something that would draw people in."

Ritchie, who has also lived on theTsulquate reserve near the District of Port Hardyand was raised by the Gwa'sala-'Nakwaxda'xw people, sayshe learned more about his mother and community through the interview with Colleen.

"Ikind of got whatI felt like was like a an overview of her life. The biggest challenge of this film is trying to get that feeling I got from those six hours and distil that into something that people could get a sense of as well," he said.

"I think we all kind of deify our parents and think they're just these perfect figures, but it helped humanize my mom for sure. I got a sense of the kind of fragility of like the the life, the delicacy of life back then."

Modelling the characters by hand

The 15-minute film took three years to make, with Hach spending hours trying to capturethe characters and environment through animation.

According to Hach,a self-taught stop motion animator and a short film director,each clay figure in the filmwas modelled by handand took several hours to perfect.

He often referred to verbal descriptions or old familyphotographs to mold each character.

"It was hard. There areother characters that are these remembered people. So these are the versions of themselves from the '60s children that are now older, some who have passed," Hach said.

"Idid it by hand," he added. "I went to the thrift store and I accumulated a bunch of found materials and textures and I just went about hand sewing tiny little costumes that I fitted on top of these skeletons and then crafted the face and all the props.

"I love how you can do that. You can bring in real world textures to make it feel all the more familiar."

Hemphill says his mother has seen the film.

"I honestly was a little nervous showing itthe first time, but she was very pleased and she's come to screenings. She's been happy," he said.

"She felt really inspired and I think she wants to do a bit more work now doing memoirs and writing down her history and thinking about her life."

Tinyis screening atseveral film festivals across B.C. this month.