Students Using Animation to Send Message on Smoking

Alone in a deserted cemetery, a teenage boy enjoys a moonlit walk--and a cigarette. As the smoke slowly filters down to a grave, a zombie rises and directs a rotted finger to the tombstone.

“Died From Smoking,” it reads.

Created by an eager group of students at Nobel Middle School in Northridge, the message is part of an animated public service announcement to warn people about the hazards of tobacco.

“They’re doing everything,” said Nigel Zeid, associate director of AnimAction, a 7-year-old program that teaches children worldwide how to bring their messages to life in two-day animation workshops. “It’s all the kids’ art.”

On Thursday, 104 students met in the school’s library to brainstorm on ideas for the 30-second anti-tobacco ads. Soon after, each student took pen and pencil in hand and set to work creating 300 full-color drawings for each scene.

By Friday, each table was strewn with the brightly colored results.

“You have to make each one a little different,” 13-year-old Kelley Kaufman said, describing the tedium of the work. Her group used the metaphor of a magic trick to communicate their message, “There’s No Trick. Don’t Smoke.”