Mikey Peterson, Teaching Artist, Snow City Arts Foundation

Snow City Arts Foundation teaches hospitalized children the art of creative writing, music, painting, photograph, and filmmaking. In the fall of 2007, Smart Museum education staff invited Snow City teaching artists to consider Adaptation as a way to inspire young patients in three Chicago hospitals. Using the work of Guy Ben-Ner as a starting point for discussing the adaptation process, Snow City teaching artists worked with children at Rush University Children’s Hospital, Stroger Medical Center, and Children’s Memorial Hospital to produce two short films. View the Snow City Arts Foundation film adaptations by visiting www.snowcityarts.com/gallery_adaptation.shtml.
-Kristy Peterson, Director of Education

Guy Ben-Ner’s idea of adaptation was not just the sole idea of our project, but also his idea of using a confined, limited space, just as he merely used his kitchen for the set of his adaptation movie, Moby Dick. Considering John and I work in a hospital setting this particular aspect intrigued us, as this was a factor that we’ve become comfortable working in and thought we could get interesting results. But the key to making this a successful movie was making the viewers forget that they’re watching kids in a hospital and transporting them into another world. We needed their energy and humor to shine in this work, therefore, we had to make this fun for the kids, and if we succeeded in doing this, then their energy and humor would naturally come through.

The Day the Earth Stood Still idea came to be for many reasons. Being raised on Sci-Fi movies as a kid and finding that many of the children in the pediatric ward were also fond of aliens and robots and such, I knew this would create a common ground between us. The hospital setting can seem physically sterile with its pale walls and odd machines that flash lights and spit out random bleeps. It reminded me of movies I’d grown up watching from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Star Wars to ultimately The Day The Earth Stood Still. I wanted the kids to relate to this as well, and as we were brushing silver paint onto the plastic cover that used to conceal the plate on their lunch tray, I couldn’t help but hope that they would now think of this a flying saucer, and as we wheeled the five foot robot that we built into their rooms, I hoped that they now felt as if they were involved in something a little more other-worldly.

We started this project in November 2007 by gathering parts and assembling Gort the robot. Several kids, as well as other artists-in-residence helped in this process and once the majority of construction was complete, we began shooting scenes at both Stroger and Rush hospitals. The kids would act, operate the cameras, and were also encouraged to direct, write scenes and digitally edit. John and I would email each other every week logging what scenes we’d shot at our respected hospitals. We also coordinated shoots together and would travel back and forth between hospitals with our cameras and laptops – sharing an external hard drive to edit from. We’ve found this particular process to successfully work as we’ve finished editing a large portion of this movie. Fellow artists have asked us if we’re planning on adapting the entire movie, and we’ve always said that we’d take it scene by scene and see what happens. But now we’re seeing the results, not only in terms of a fun effective adaptation but also by working with enthusiastic kids who’ve seemed to momentarily forget why they’re in the hospital in the first place. I now see no reason why we shouldn’t continue.