Katu Katu — Giedrė Boots, 2021
A small caterpillar and his kitten friends find a new friend to play with: a ball of string. The action follows them on their journey of discovery with the ball of string as they explore the word around them. The caterpillar’s journey of discovery goes further and leads them to their eventual transformation into a butterfly.
The filmmaker merges live action and 2D animation, allowing her footage of the kittens to dictate the narrative of the ball of wool and the caterpillar. This gives that narrative a flow due to the reactions of the animation to what’s happening in the live action.
Classroom Activities
Print All- Critical
- Cultural
- Creative
- Clip Details
Critical
- What do you notice about the characters in the film? How are the caterpillar/butterfly and wool ball different from the kittens? How can you tell?
- Why has the director used live action and animation to make the film? What would be good about making a film this way? What might be difficult?
- Where does this take place? How can we tell? What evidence is there in the film? What time is it set? Is it in the morning/midday/evening? What time of year is it (spring/summer/autumn/winter)? How can we tell?
- Does anyone have pets? Are they trained? Would it be easier to train cats or kittens? Do you think the kittens in the film are trained? If they weren’t trained, how would the filmmaker make the movie? What would they have to think about?
- How did the mood/emotion of each character change during the film? Work in a small group and focus on one character. How did you feel in the beginning? How did you feel in the middle? How did you feel at the end? Consider evidence from the text at all times.
Cultural
- Who are you friendly with in school? Do you have friends out of school? What makes a good friend? What qualities would you look for? What interests would be good? Does friendship mean the same for everyone?
- What strategies do you use to make friends? If there was a new pupil, how would you help them make friends? Create a “How to Make Friends” book/comic?
- What other films/stories have mixed animation and live action? Ideas might include Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Space Jam, Mary Poppins, Enchanted, Spongebob Squarepants, Casper, Scooby Doo, Christopher Robin etc. (Clips from these can be found on YouTube.) What do all these films have in common. What things are animated? What things are live action? Why?
Creative
WRITE
- Write a short conversation between the ball of wool and the caterpillar upon their first meeting. This could be planned on individual speech bubble cut-outs and done in pairs or groups of three.
- Change the perspective. Re-tell the story from the point of view of the first kitten that follows the butterfly and string outside.
FILMMAKING
- Giedrė Bootsis an artist that often uses mixed media to create her artwork. A portfolio of her work can be found here. This can be used as an initial stimulus for pupils to create their own mixed media scenes. Choose from a variety of backgrounds to work with and then select images from comics/magazines/newspapers/old books/illustrations to create an experimental scene.
DRAMA
- Act out a scenario about two people meeting for the first time. What would the conversation be like? How would it develop? Would the people become friends?
STEM
- Investigate the sequence of the butterfly life cycle. This could be tied into a life cycles project, therefor looking at different life cycles within the animal kingdom. Think about the real-world timing of these events, compared to the speed it happens in the film.
Clip Details
| Year of Production | 2021 |
|---|---|
| Genre | Animation |
| Curriculum Areas | Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Modern Languages, Literacy and English, Sciences |
| Director | Giedrė Boots |
| Country of Origin | Lithuania |
| Medium / Content | Mixed Media, Fiction, Colour, Sound, No Dialogue |
| Themes | Feelings, Identity / Self, Food / Environment |
| Clip Length | 05:57 |
| Clip Length | 05:57 |
| Age Group | P1-P4 |
