Wallowa Lake–The REAL Story by Joan Gilbert

Join Joan Gilbert Tuesday April 16th for a showing of the animated film (6 minutes) and the Behind the Scenes film (17 min)! Joan will be discussing working with kids on a large art project and answering questions.

Free and open to the public!

Donations Appreciated.

Wallowa Lake–The REAL Story started in 2011 as an animation project created and produced by Colby Knifong’s sixth graders at Enterprise Elementary. They wanted to tell their own story—the REAL story—of how the lake was formed. Directed by Joan Gilbert, the animated movie was used as a fundraiser for the Enterprise Elementary Art & Music Program.

The production process was divided among the class, and included creating story boards, designing characters, building sets, directing, completing special tasks, voicing characters, writing the lyrics for the theme song, and singing and playing instruments for the soundtrack. In addition, all 33 students took turns animating.

The kids worked an average of 2 hours per week for 5 months. The animated movie is 6 minutes long and used 2070 still photos—7 hours of work for every minute of the movie! After the overwhelmingly positive response to the project, it was decided that this story needed to be told as a children’s picture book. The script was turned to rhyme and the animation “stills” were used to illustrate the story.

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Joan Gilbert grew up in La Grande, and has lived in Enterprise for over 20 years. She has BFA in Graphic Design/Illustration, and in addition her long career in the arts, Joan has volunteered teaching animation and art in schools and camps across the region. One highlight is the 2012 five-month animation project with Enterprise sixth graders, leading to a six-minute animated short film Wallowa Lake – the REAL Story, which then turned into a children’s book. Joan has written and/or illustrated three other children’s books, and in 2022 produced a solo art exhibit at the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture that was the culmination of a three-year artistic journey.