The young filmmakers were part of a six-session workshop, funded by Arts Midwest, a division of The National Endowment for the Arts.

“We were awarded a grant to put artists back to work, aimed at persons who are underserved,” said Maureen Seamonds of Legacy Learning. She said the organization could have worked with rural residents or indigenous people. Ultimately, LLBRV decided to work with young people who are on the autism spectrum.

“We thought that would be fun,” Seamonds said.

Artists Kristina LeClere and Patrick O’Loughlin were brought on board to work with the workshop participants. Legacy Learning decided to keep the number of participants to just four since it was the first time the workshop had been offered.

Some of the workshop participants created elaborate sets for their animation films, like the outer space set above. Others worked with drawings on an iPad to create the movies.

LeClere had worked with adults with autism in Omaha creating art. She said stop-motion animation was “a big hit” with the folks with whom she had worked.

“When Maureen asked me what I thought we could do in this workshop, I told her about stop-motion. Everybody loved working with it,” LeClere said. She said she was pleasantly surprised with how many people supported the project.

She said that stop-motion animation is a simple form of film making that can utilize a variety of materials from Legos to clay to small toys or action figures.

“The thing that I love about these movies that are being shown tonight, is that they take ordinary life and they make it into art,” she said.

The young artists built sets, created the characters and storylines.They used iPads to film the movies.

Like LeClere, O’Loughlin is new to the community.

“This was a big privilege for me. This has been a really great introduction to the community,” he said. “I think I gained about 10-fold from the young artists compared to what I passed along to them.”

O’Loughlin said the young filmmakers first worked with the iPads to get familiar with the technology and the concept of stop-motion animation. Then they began developing story ideas.

“We spent the first week or so really just challenging them to talk about what they like or what they would like to incorporate,” he said. “We built the ideas first on paper with words and then were able to talk about some scenes.”

The workshop leaders tried to challenge the artists to work on the films in ways they would enjoy. Some built and painted sets and others worked strictly on the iPads, creating scenes with drawings.

“What we really tried to put first was what do they want to do,” said Seamonds. “We spend alot of time with programs, trying to fit them into things we do. We tried to really create something that fit the program around something that the directors would like see happen.”

Seamonds said Kathy Theobald and Judy Hartnett, who have worked in the classroom with persons on the autism spectrum, served as assistants in the program.

“It was great to have them involved to help keep things running smoothly and to have another pair of hands — there’s a lot of moving things, stopping, pushing buttons — they really acted as assistants to the directors,” Seamonds said.

She said she hopes that the program can continue in the future. But Monday night, it was all about the program’s first participants.

As the lights dimmed in the theater and the screen flickered to life, three young directors had a chance to see the fruits of their labor and hear the appreciative applause from those in attendance.