For our third project, Amara and I wanted to choose the story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hallow" by Washington Irving. In the theme of Halloween and to hopefully to gain interest from the boy students we decided to come up with a color theme and general tone for our students to work from. We based the melancholy colors of Goya to inspire a dreary and dark story animation. There are several variations of the story so we briefly explained our story to the students on the first day and then worked on a overall plot after discussing it with our two students. We want them to feel like they really own this piece instead of us making them connect the pre-placed dots the whole way through. After we would talk with them we will plan out a set story board for them to work from in the third class time of the camp.
The story of Sleepy Hallow was influenced by several ideas Irving discovered. The town is based off the New York town, Terrytown that was primarily a Dutch community in the 1800's. After living in Terrytown and hearing Dutch ghost stories, Irving traveled to England to later be influenced by German and Scottish folklore. This is where the idea of the headless horseman sprang from. The horseman was originally a Hessian soldier who's head was blown off by a cannonball during a battle. Eventually, Irving moved back to his beloved New England town and wrote his story of Ichabod Crane and Elizabeth living in Sleepy Hallow while a frightening Headless ghost haunted the lovely town.
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