In dreaming up a world haunted by armies of evil snowmen, filmmaker Jack Penney said the biggest challenge was keeping his cat away from the filming props.
Jack is the now-award winning filmmaker behind the Dead North picture Eat Your Carrots. He is also 10 years old.
Eat Your Carrots is a five-minute movie that combines live action with stop motion animation using Lego pieces. It imagines a world where a bad crop of carrots grow into villainous snowmen and attack Yellowknife with their weapon of choice SA国际影视传媒� Molotov cocktails. ThatSA国际影视传媒檚 why Jack cautions his younger sister Lucy, SA国际影视传媒測ou have to eat your carrots.SA国际影视传媒�
In his fantasy horror filmmaking debut, Jack said seeing his movie come to life was SA国际影视传媒減retty cool.SA国际影视传媒� He said the idea for the filmSA国际影视传媒檚 narrative was SA国际影视传媒渏ust a random idea that came into (his) head,SA国际影视传媒� borne out of his sisterSA国际影视传媒檚 refusal to eat her carrots.
With the help of his dad, Jack took four months to write the script, animate his drawings, film the live action and the Lego stop motion, create a score using GarageBand, and edit the shots together SA国际影视传媒� all the while fending off his cat, Pixie, from stealing the Lego pieces.
Eat Your Carrots won a Dead North Zombear award at the 2019 festival for best death, an epic snowman explosion, and was featured in this yearSA国际影视传媒檚 Toronto Blood in the Snow film festival.
In last weekSA国际影视传媒檚 sitting of the Legislative Assembly, MLA Katrina Nokleby recognized her Great Slave constituent. She said Jack's SA国际影视传媒渃inematic success at such a young age is a good example of how the NWT strives to foster its creative community.SA国际影视传媒�
With all of the SA国际影视传媒渨eightySA国际影视传媒� topics to address, Nokleby told SA国际影视传媒 itSA国际影视传媒檚 nice to sometimes spotlight someone in the community and thought it would be a good way to tie it back into some of the funding available to NWT artists.
SA国际影视传媒淭he best part of the territory is our cultural landscape," she said. SA国际影视传媒淚 think itSA国际影视传媒檚 awesome that someone JackSA国际影视传媒檚 age gets the support they need in the territory. Our small population means we can better support people in some ways.SA国际影视传媒�
She said promoting the arts was SA国际影视传媒渁 very fun partSA国际影视传媒� of the Industry, Tourism and Investment (ITI) portfolio she held until earlier this year and she has always been struck by the multi-faceted nature of NWT people being one thing by day, and SA国际影视传媒渁n awesome beader or painter,SA国际影视传媒� by night.
Nokleby highlighted the $250,000 in GNWT funding available to NWT artists through a creative industries funding in the 2020-2021 fiscal year. She said the funding is open visual artists, filmmakers like Penney, performance artists, and others.
SA国际影视传媒淚 strongly encourage all Northern artists to apply."
Jack hopes to continue Eat Your CarrotsSA国际影视传媒� broadcast on the national stage. He expects to soon hear back whether or not his film has been accepted into the 2021 Dawson City International Short Film Festival.
Though he has been an extra in previous years of Dead North films, Jack said he prefers being behind the camera and plans to continue making films in the fantasy horror genre.
HeSA国际影视传媒檚 not yet sure what his next subject might be, but said he and his sister have already started the brainstorming session.
"My baby sister wants to make a movie about unicorns."
