Students help produce Cartoon Network animated film

Whether growing up in the Burbank that’s in Illinois or the one in Washington, children can tune into Cartoon Network — but in the “media capital of the world,” they can get into the toons themselves.

That’s what a group of nine middle and high school students from the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank and Greater East Valley did recently, working with professionals from the Cartoon Network to write, draw and voice an animated short over the past 18 months.

Last week, they got to see the final cut of the two-minute cartoon in a special screening at the cable network’s studios. Soon it will go up on the network’s website.

“I think it just shows how lucky the kids in Burbank are,” said Zita Lefebvre, the studio’s retiring director of operations and community relations. “You can’t buy this opportunity.”

Titled “Revelation,” the storyline was inspired, in part, by real events, said Sherry DeLizia, creative arts director at the Boys & Girls Club.

In the short, a bully and two sidekicks trick a boy they call “that slow kid Joey” into stepping on milk cartons in order to impress some girls. The cartons explode, soaking Joey in milk and making him a laughing stock. Afterward, however, one sidekick has a change of heart and befriends Joey, and the bully is humiliated in his own dairy disaster.

The story developed through discussions about the effects that bullying has had on the lives of the nine students involved in the project, DeLizia said.

“It’s a way that they have found that they could do something active in antibullying,” DeLizia said, adding that the goal is “to help others think and make positive choices.”

To help the kids create the film, Lefebvre made frequent visits to the Boys & Girls Club with Mike Roth, an Emmy award-winning writer and supervising producer who has worked on Cartoon Network shows, such as “Regular Show,” as well as Disney’s “Phineas and Ferb.”

Roth, who directed the short, helped teach the kids about the animation process.

For Tamara Chehata, who was a student at Options for Youth when the project began, helping make the short and seeing the final result was “really amazing.” She voiced one of the sidekicks and she said the film was a team effort that drew on all of the participants’ interests.

“Everyone pitched in something different,” she said.

Chehata is now a freshman art major at Glendale Community College, but she said she has a passion for acting and is considering a career in voice-over work.

In fact, her performance in the short impressed the Cartoon Network professionals, Lefebvre said.

“I’m going to hook her up with a mentor for voice talent,” she added.

But Chehata’s not the only one who will continue to benefit from the Cartoon Network partnership. DeLizia said the studio provided funds for three computers with the software that will allow Boys & Girls Club members to animate their own movies starting next fall with the help of mentors from the studio.

Roth said that growing up in Allentown, Pa., there were no animators to mentor him, and he was very removed from the entertainment industry.

“For me, as a kid, I would have loved an opportunity like this,” Roth said.