SAUGUS — A group of Saugus teens are responsible for one of the two Telly Awards Saugus TV just took home.
Creators at the public access television studio are celebrating a bronze and silver award just announced by the 39th Annual Telly Awards for two separate pieces. One was created during a two-week summer program offered to newbie high schoolers last year.
The Telly Awards was founded in 1979 to honor excellence in local, regional, and cable television commercials with non-broadcast video.
Works are judged by a group of more than 200 people who have worked in the industry and previously won the Telly Awards’ highest honor.
The teens took home bronze in the General Student for Television category for their stop-motion animation piece, which combined object animation, 2D animation, claymation, and pixelation.
Bobby Dooley, Carlos Colon, Arianna Sargent, and Zach Spilman spent two weeks learning the basics of stop-motion animation and creating their own masterpiece last summer.
Using construction paper, tiles, Legos, and clay, the teens turned their imaginations into a cartoon world where carts can do karate and a game of Tetris or Donkey Kong can be played with construction paper.
“I’ve been collecting Legos since I was eight years old and at five years old I was building with cops (Legos),” said Dooley, 15. “As a kid, I would move them around myself and now that I can see more than one move around at a time, it’s like seeing the actions come to life.”
None of the students had significant previous experience working in animation but all had an interest.
The two older teens, Sargent and Colon, have since moved on to study related fields in college.
Sargent said she has always had a passion for drawing and eventually discovered YouTube and fell in love with animated movies. Being involved in the summer program gave her a strong foundation for the classes she took in her first semester of college.
“It gave me an advantage,”said Sargent, a dual major in animation and illustration at Lesley University. “The first semester we did stop-motion animation and I had a leg up on that.”
Saugus TV also won a silver Telly Award in the General-Live Events for Television category for its coverage of Veteran’s Appreciation Day on Sept. 16, 2017 at World Series Park by employees Michelle Madar and John Prudent.
“Saugus TV is pushing the boundaries for video and television innovation and creativity at a time when the industry is rapidly changing,” said Sabrina Dridje, managing director of the Telly Awards, in a statement. “These awards are a tribute to the talent and vision of its creators.”
