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The youngest animator yet?

By Rebecca Bria rbria@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Noah Sunday-Lefkowitz has produced five, 5-minute claymation movies. And he’s only 13 years old.

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Noah Sunday-Lefkowitz, 13, presents a program about his award-winning claymation videos to a crowd of over 75 people at the Back Mountain Memorial Library.

Fred Adams/ For The Dallas Post

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Thirteen-year-old Noah Sunday-Lefkowitz, a claymation animator with one of his characters, holds a presentation at the Back Mountain Memorial Library.

Fred Adams photos/ For The Dallas Post

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That’s quite a feat - since Sunday-Lefkowitsz creates the characters, sets, lighting, stories and animation himself.

The son of Jay Lefkowitz and Lisa Sunday-Lefkowitz, of Shavertown, Sunday-Lefkowitz presented a program on claymation to 64 children and 28 adults during the morning of Thursday, June 18, in the children’s room of the Back Mountain Memorial Library. The presentation was part of the national summer reading program, “Be Creative @ Your Library,” going on at the library.

Sunday-Lefkowitz spoke about the art of claymation, showed one of his movies and had the children make a clay sculpture.

“I think they were very thrilled and I think they came away with, ‘I want to do this,’” Sunday-Lefkowitz said of the children who attended his presentation. “I think I gave them an opinion that, ‘Not only is it really cool, but I can do this,’ which is what I try to do.”

According to Sunday-Lefkowitz, claymation is a type of movie making where a person crafts small clay sculptures. He or she then takes photos of the characters that slightly vary their movement and when the photos are flipped through in sequence, the characters appear to be moving.

“When I was in fourth-grade I saw the movie, ‘Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ and I really thought it was amazing because I knew it wasn’t a drawing, I knew it was animation,” Sunday-Lefkowitz said. “I searched it on a computer to see how they did it.”

Sunday-Lefkowitz learned the basics of claymation at a summer camp at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, but taught himself most of what he knows through research and watching behind-the-scenes clips from claymation movies.

It takes Sunday-Lefkowitz about three months to complete the entire process for a 5-minute claymation film. He is most proud of the movie he showed at the library called, “Furniture Finale,” in which house furniture comes to life during the day and goes back into place when someone comes home.

In the summer of 2006, Sunday-Lefkowitz heard the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) was looking for 12 children with unique talents from across the country for television commercials on PBS KIDS GO! He auditioned in Philadelphia and was selected from thousands of other children to be featured with his claymation work in a 30-second television segment.

Sunday-Lefkowitz was filmed at his home in Shavertown in September 2006 and the segment of him has aired on PBS stations nationwide ever since.

Sunday-Lefkowitz captured the first-place award in the 12-and-under category at the Endless Mountain Digital Film Festival in both 2008 and 2009. He also assisted at a claymation camp at his school, Wyoming Seminary Lower School, the week of June 15.

When not working on his claymation movies, Sunday-Lefkowitz enjoys playing the piano, violin and guitar, singing and acting. This past spring, he played the lead character of “Pirate Frank” in the “Fearsome Pirate Frank” play at his school.

Sunday-Lefkowitz would love to travel to Bristol, England to visit Aardman Animations, the studio of the creators of Wallace and Gromit series and the movie, “Chicken Run.” He especially wants to meet Nick Park, creator of the Wallace and Gromit characters.

It is Sunday-Lefkowitz’s dream to one day work at Aardman doing claymation but he’s also willing to do claymation, animation or the voice of Donald Duck, since he says he’s already good at it, at Walt Disney Studios.

“I think if anybody tried really hard, they could do it as well as I do,” Sunday-Lefkowitz said. “I concentrate and I put all of my effort into it and that’s what makes it work.”