junior program summer site : conversations : second session



	ben from vermont (8/6) Ben is a Voyager residential student from Vermont. An avid writer who has competed in playwriting contests, he's excited to have had the opportunity to develop his writing skills in his Explo courses. He thinks Explo is most like the color blue -- playful, and sometimes a bit mellow. How do you like Explo? It’s really good. Which classes are you taking? I’m taking “It’s Alive!”, which is stop-motion animation and claymation, and I’m doing “Up, Up + Away” [comic book art]. For mini-courses I’m doing street luge and fantasy writing. What are you doing in “It’s Alive!”? In that class we’re making a fairly small short film using clay and wire and stuff. Our group’s film is about an alarm clock trying to get its owner to wake up, but the owner won’t wake up, so in the end he just ends up smashing the alarm clock. I think that has happened to me once or twice. How did you come up with that idea? At my house, my dad always forgets to turn off his alarm clock if he goes downstairs, and sometimes he doesn’t wake up even if the alarm clock is going off, so I just came up with that idea. Instead of pressing the snooze button or something and turning it off, the guy just smashes it so he doesn’t have to get up. How do you make the film? Basically, we have a digital camera, a couple pieces of cardboard, some paint, beads, marbles, wire, clay. . . We make a set out of the cardboard and then we can paint it and add objects and props onto it. With the digital camera, since it’s stop-motion animation, we have to take a lot of pictures. We just have to move each character a little bit for each picture, and then we add in sound effects. Then, our teacher puts it all together and we’re going to get a DVD of everybody’s. Tomorrow is our last day of filming. What have you been doing in “Up, Up + Away”? We’ve just been drawing our comics. Yesterday people started inking their drawings, but I’m a little bit behind on that. What is your comic about? Mine is something called “Slipknot”. There’s a guy that’s the owner of a fashion company, and he gets robbed by a group of people that have been robbing people in Chicago, so he decides to take action against it. The reason they call him “The Slipknot” is because the way he takes care of the thefts is by tying people up to various objects, then calling the police. What have you been learning about comic book art? It’s a lot about drawing. We learned about profiles, proportions of the face, and bodies and stuff. Like, there are seven heads to every full body. I didn’t really know how to draw profiles before this. It’s been a good way to develop story modes. How are your mini-courses? Very good. The first day we had mini-courses it rained, so I didn’t get to do street luge that day, but I got to do it last time and it was a lot of fun. The first day of fantasy writing was also a lot of fun. We just brainstormed ideas and started them last time. I started a story called “Continuum”. It’s about a guy, and right when he enters the world he drops through continuums and he ends up in between continuums. So there are objects that are in this continuum, but they have a weird life of their own. Like, strawberries are buried in the ground like potatoes are, and fish swim in the air and stuff. It’s just a little bit weird, but it’s pretty cool. Do you write a lot on your own, or did you decide to try something new? I’ve done a little bit of writing on my own – mostly plays, actually – not necessarily fantasy writing. Wow, you write plays?! Yeah, I was in a playwriting contest. I wouldn’t call them parodies, per se, but they’re about stuff in life that is just a little bit different. Where did you learn to do all this writing? There was a project at my school called “Project Playwright”. It has really gotten me interested in writing. Has Explo been a positive experience in terms of developing your writing? Yeah. I’ve definitely learned some really good brainstorming modes. Just the other day, a kid that is in my hall wanted to write a new story, but when he couldn’t come up with any ideas, I gave him ideas of ways to brainstorm. He hasn’t gotten anything yet, but I’m pretty confident he’ll come up with something eventually. Why did you decide to come to Explo? I just heard that it was really fun and that there were lots of activities and stuff to do. Most summers there are one or two things that I do, but I’ve never done many summer programs before, so this sounded fun. I had never gone to a boarding program before, or a program that was longer than a week. How has that experience been? It has been pretty amazing. It’s totally different, but I’ve definitely adapted to it. It was a little bit difficult on like the second day. The fact that you’re away from home is a little strange, but it wasn’t that different because there are people here that help us out and stuff. I have two really good residential directors who are residing over West Campus, which is where all the seventh graders live, and two really good RA’s who control my hall. What is it like being a residential student? What do you do with your hall mates? Well, the first week we played poker, which got us to get to know each other a lot. “Connect Four” is another really popular game. I don’t play it, but a lot of other people do. We have nightly check-ins with our RD’s. We play games and we read and we draw and just hang out. Have you done anything here that is distinctly “Explo”? Definitely the theme days. There was Alien Day and Harry Potter Day, and tomorrow is going to be Explolympics. It’s just really cool how everyone dresses up and plays roles that have to do with that theme day. What type of student would do well at Explo? Anyone who is not afraid to try new things, but basically almost anybody, as long as they’re willing to have an open mindset and an open heart. Have you found that students here fall into that category? Yeah. From everything I’ve seen, most people are like that. That’s definitely a good thing. How has that affected your experience here? I just felt pretty welcomed. On the first couple of days, people were really helpful. It was really nice, because a couple people on my hall had been to Explo before and they helped me out. Even on the first day, I met my roommate and it was really good that we knew each other then. What do you appreciate most about Explo? Just that they’re willing to give you all these wonderful activities, and that they want you and everyone else to have fun. It’s a really unique experience and I don’t know if you would be able to find it anywhere else. If Explo were a color, what would it be? It would probably be blue. Blue can be playful, but also a bit mellow. Explo has both of those. Green could work too. What should Explo’s mascot be? Probably a trampoline -- like, “Tony the Trampoline”. I don’t know if you’ve ever sat on a trampoline, but it’s really nice. You can also play on it and jump around on it and stuff. more conversations > first session \| second session