What began as a long-held dream for Nicky Fryer has evolved into a growing collection of animated music videos designed to get children moving, dancing and developing coordination skills.
Working alongside SIT Screen Arts Tutor Ruby Meades and a team of students and graduates, Ms Fryer has already released two SIT filmed and animated songs on YouTube.
Ms Fryer, who is a Teacher Aide and music teacher at Takitimu Primary School in Nightcaps, first wrote many of the songs nearly two decades ago. "I had written some kids' songs back in 2007," she said. "I'd written a stage show, recorded a CD and done a little mini tour. I'd always had an ambition of getting animations created for the songs."
The opportunity arose after one of her songs, The Unicorn, began attracting attention on streaming platforms.
"The Unicorn was added to a playlist by an Australian children's entertainment company called Bounce Patrol and was getting quite a lot of streams. I thought this is actually starting to take off, so I approached Ruby to see if it would be possible to animate it."
Ms Meades immediately saw potential in the project and began working closely with Ms Fryer and now former SIT student, Eyessa Gentle, to transform the song into an animated music video.
"I had drawn a rough cartoon fairy years ago that I used as my logo," Ms Fryer said. “Eyessa turned her into an animated character and we went from there. We drew the unicorn, created other fairy characters, developed an animatic and worked together on the story."
The success of The Unicorn led to a second animated project, Let's Move It, which was released earlier this year and encourages children to get active through simple dance movements.
Having spent 11 years running a music school in Christchurch for preschool and primary-aged children, and with a background in dance, Ms Fryer said creating engaging movement-based content for children has always been important to her.
"I've always been passionate about getting kids up and moving, not just sitting at a screen," she said.
"I've tried to make the moves very easy for children to follow and the words repetitive so they can sing along. A lot of content online is designed for adults. Even now on the internet, it's actually quite difficult to find material pitched specifically for children."
The ultimate test audience was Ms Fryer's own students. "They loved it. They were all up and dancing, so that made my little heart sing," she said. "All my colleagues have been using the videos as well. They're the sort of thing teachers can use in class to give children a break and a chance to have a wriggle between lessons."
One of the most rewarding aspects of the collaboration has been seeing ideas that existed only in her imagination become reality. "It's really exciting seeing my ideas come to life. That has been extremely gratifying," she said.
"Working with Ruby and the students has been fantastic. Ruby is great to deal with because she's really good at visualising ideas and it's great having people to bounce ideas off."
The collaborative process has also inspired Ms Fryer to revisit creative projects that were unfinished. "We're now working on some Christmas-themed songs," she said, explaining, “I had written lyrics for some Christmas carols many years ago but had never recorded the vocals. This project has absolutely inspired me to keep going and finish off some things that I'd started."
Ms Fryer says some people have been surprised to see something so creative come out of remote, rural Southland, however, she finds living in a small town fulfilling and she loves flying the flag for Ohai. “There’s a real creative community out here,” she said.
And while the videos benefit local children and schools, they also create important opportunities for emerging creatives studying in Invercargill. Some funding and project support has allowed Ms Meades to employ graduates as interns in animation and production roles, helping them build professional portfolios and gain practical experience.
The productions have involved a small but dedicated team of animator interns and performers, including Aarush Shrestha, a pupil from Ms Fryer's school who featured in Let's Move It. "It's still a relatively small team, but everyone has crucial roles to get it done and we use a range of animation techniques to achieve our vision," Ms Meades said.
Interns studying the Graduate Diploma of Visual Media - Desirée Head and Reuben Leslie - helped to film the live action subject, Aarush, in the creative campus studio for the Let's Move It music video.
“By keying out the green screen, the dancer – Aarush - was added into the scenes, then we applied the funky effects to make him look more cartoony and fit into the ani-mated world,” Ms Meades explained.
Ms Meades said the project reflects SIT's commitment to connecting students and graduates with real-world industry experience while supporting community partners.
"Everything they work on becomes part of their portfolio. It's published work that they can use in CVs, showreels and future job applications," she said. "The projects function to help bridge that gap between graduating and then getting enough experience to gain employment.”
"Really it's about creating things to work the muscles of what we teach and grounding the most recent techniques and directly feeding it to class. But also, to bring ideas to life for clients who otherwise wouldn't be able to create the material, and that's the whole purpose." she said.
The project also has a personal connection for Ms Meades.
"This is something that I looked into when I was studying; this is a great opportunity to come back ten years later to actually create content for kids, especially getting them to move, getting them up, getting them dancing and improving hand-eye coordination."
"The collaboration between music and visual storytelling creates exciting possibilities," she said. "Whether it's music videos, short films or digital storytelling projects, there is a lot of potential."
To see ‘Let’s Move It’ click on the link below:
https://youtu.be/R3M4j7n4aE4?si=bE85f9up97BpGH26