THE force is with children from Long Lee Primary School.

A group of 14 year-four pupils took part in an animation project, using a Star Wars-themed storyline.

The youngsters spent seven weeks on the venture, supported by IT company Cosurica, which supplied a staff member free to offer expertise.

Their creation involved the use of Lego characters and spacecraft on a mixed media set.

"They used traditional stop motion animation techniques – involving hundreds of photographs – to create the visual effect of movement frame by frame," said year-four teacher Andy Bray.

"All the children had a variety of important roles, including plot formation, scriptwriting, set and spacecraft building, animation of the models and characters, camera operation, editing and creating the funny voices and sound effects to replicate the Star Wars characters."

The finished work has been entered into the 12th annual film and animation competition run by Bradford Council's innovation centre.

A Cosurica spokesman said: "I was amazed at how quickly the children picked up how to use the technology.

"Every member of the animation club should be very pleased with and proud of their work.

"The end result is fantastic."

Finalists in the competition will be notified by tomorrow (June 17) and invited to a red-carpet event at Cineworld Bradford on July 11, when entries will be shown on a large screen and an interactive voting system will operate to choose the winner.

Mr Bray added: "No matter what the outcome of the competition, I'm very proud of how enthusiastic and 'hands on' all the children have been."