British Library: Playtimes

For the past couple of months director Leo Bridle has been creating a series of nine 40-second animations for the British Library. A major new portal on their website, 'Playtimes: A Century of Children's Games and Rhymes', launched a few days back by Michael Rosen, aims to preserve children’s games and songs as an important aspect of our national culture and explore how they continue to be a part of the lives of children living in the age of computer games and the internet. Leo's animations form the backbone to the new web portal, illustrating all the different types of games children play. Below we present a fun edit!

Leo held workshops at two schools, in London and Sheffield, to brainstorm the content for the nine films, and create the artwork and soundtracks. Back in the studio we animated the kids drawings to bring their stories to life over a ten week period. Below we feature a selection of artwork created by the kids. To watch the nine films in full, visit http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/playground/kidszone.html.