The Animation Career Training Program of The Center for Learning Unlimited competes in 2021 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge
The Center for Learning Unlimited, a non-public, WASC accredited day school in Torrance, California, springs into its first film festival foray with ‘What To Do With Your Tabloid News,’ an animated mockumentary short created expressly for the 2021 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge: Home Edition 2.0 in partnership with the Bentonville Film Festival. In addition to a kindergarten through 12th grade curriculum, CLU maintains a highly regarded animation career training program for adults on the autism spectrum. CLU’s official Easterseals Film Challenge crew includes all 20 of its neurodiverse clients who are ages 18+ and enrolled in full-time animation studies.
‘What To Do With Your Tabloid News’ is an almost 3-minute, lighthearted explainer video that employs origami, stop motion animation, and CGI to achieve maximum messaging impact. The musically underscored narrative emphasizes that there is at least one fun, practical, and therapeutic use for all of the bad news from the last year or so. To discover this novel coping mechanism, curious audience members are able to watch the entire film on YouTube and learn accordingly: https://youtu.be/u_ZZZijoJ5g
CLU developed and produced this opus in its entirety during the designated Film Challenge window of March 16–20, 2021. Individual online Film Challenge screenings count favorably toward CLU in the highly competitive, companion public awareness campaign category. Official awareness initiative dates are March 27 — April 5. Therefore, repeat viewing, liking, and sharing of ‘What To Do With Your Tabloid News’ is welcomed and encouraged right now!
CLU opened its educational doors in 2002; CLU’s bespoke animation track launched in 2017. CLU provides post-high school pupils with digital arts, interpersonal, and professional tools for life. The ultimate goal is for students to smoothly transition into entry-level animation industry careers upon program completion. CLU’s inaugural animation graduating class enters the workforce in summer 2021.
Easterseals literature asserts that, although more than 1 in 4 Americans live with a disability, unique stories of this community are often untold. By seeing these stories reflected on screen, audiences are inspired to join the conversation and expand a collective viewpoint. The Easterseals Disability Film Challenge provides a collaborative platform to showcase physical hurdles in many forms. The Film Challenge’s ‘Best Awareness Campaign’ category spotlights this mission through grassroots publicity that raises the visibility of competing films.
CLU founder and executive director Virginia Erxleben, EdD, BCET is enthusiastic about the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge and the opportunity that it presents for CLU clients. She says, “This contest supplies a catapult for creative adults who want to work their way through training toward employment in the entertainment industry. We are grateful that Easterseals and the Bentonville Film Festival see the value of disabled auteurs, especially those with extraordinary artistic talent.”
About The Center for Learning Unlimited
Established in 2002, The Center for Learning Unlimited has a calling to reconnect complex young learners with their academic, social and emotional potential, thereby empowering them to engage as citizens of the 21st century. CLU serves both publicly and privately sponsored students with learning challenges in grades kindergarten through 12. This therapeutic educational environment is characterized by individualized teaching plans, an exceptional faculty, and year-round initiatives structured to meet the needs of students and their families. CLU also is home to a swiftly growing animation career training program for adults on the autism spectrum.
To view the full ‘What To Do With Your Tabloid News’ press kit, please see https://filmfreeway.com/TabloidNews.
To browse an interactive animation student art gallery with noteworthy school updates, please visit the CLU LinkedIn.com page:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/center-for-learning-unlimited.
To learn more about all CLU educational offerings, please see https://cflu.org.
