"We Weren't The First Ones Here" (Newport Film School 2010)

Memories. Guaranteed to raise emotion. Good and bad, big days, normal days, happy days, sad days. We Weren't The First Ones Here tells the story of a house in a combination of stop motion, 2D animation, and voice-overs. "And when the tree finally fell it looked so empty - that big piece of sky where there wasn't any before." The narrative history of a house over the generations is never sensationalised in an affecting script. "I felt really small in that big expanse of a house." Indeed some of the memories are humdrum and all the better for that. Spilt champagne, scribbles on walls, a child's first words. Jack Vaughan's exceptional music sets the tone for each scene, from stillness to a brisk canter and some of the visual ideas work beautifully, the peeling wallpaper revealing the coverings of generations. "Opening the curtains and waking up." There's also a dramatic quality about the sets, particularly when empty. It was a joint enterprise for Kate Broadhurst, Emma-Rose Dade, Helen Dallat, Daisy Gould and Joseph Wallace, using the enthusiastic voices of Catherine McKinnon, Adam Peck and Edith Woolley. Such a fine idea for a student production from the fine Newport Film School.  "Without the people, the life, the house was nothing really."