Edmonton animator recreates the horror of junior-high shop class

Hart Snider’s lasting hatred for his dingy, cigarette-butt-laden junior-high-school shop class inspired the Edmonton filmmaker’s new animated short.

Shop Class, an eight-minute film now streaming on the National Film Board website, follows the trials and tribulations of a gangly, 14-year-old Snider as he endures industrial arts class.

It’s a nostalgic, yet frightening trip down memory lane for Snider who would have much preferred to have take home-ec but was told it was no place for boys.

The film’s leading man is shop-class instructor Mr. P.

The character was inspired by Snider’s real-life shop teacher at Parkview School in west Edmonton and there is nothing fictional about his antics in the dark comedy, Snider said.

Boogers and blood

Snider feared for his life, or at least his limbs, every time he walked into the class. 

“I was definitely scared, as were most of my classmates,” Snider recalled in an interview Thursday with CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM.

“I think that was part of his scheme as a teacher, to make us scared enough that we would listen to him because we were of course doing something potentially dangerous.” 

Just like his animated character that he inspired, the real Mr. P was an imposing figure who ruled over his workshop with a nicotine-stained iron fist through the 1970s and 1980s.

He was just very manly and wanted to impart some of that onto his students.-Hart Snider

With a long scruffy beard, broad shoulders and meaty forearms covered in tattoos, he could often be heard growling at students with testosterone-fuelled threats like “Sit down, you turkeys.” or “Don’t get your blood on my machines.”

He wanted to turn boys into men.  

“He was just very manly and wanted to impart some of that onto his students,” Snider said with a chuckle.

“I’ve been telling stories about him for years so it was very natural to turn him into an animated character.”

Boogers and blood 

Oh, and Mr. P’s most notable move? He openly used his own boogers to repair student’s failed woodworking projects.

His unusual (and disgusting) choice of all-natural glue continues to make Mr. P the stuff of legend among Parkview School alumni.

To this day, some of his students have their old mucus-filled class assignments in their possession.

“When I put up the trailer, someone put up photographic evidence of their ukulele​ that they’d kept and they were pointing at the spot where it happened.”

The film is just the latest in a series of animated shorts by the Edmonton-born, Vancouver-based filmmaker.

While Shop Class is narrated by Fred Ewanuick of Corner Gas fame, it was Snider who wrote and directed the film. 

It’s his second Edmonton-inspired short. The Basketball Game, released in 2011, also takes audiences back to Snider’s teenage years in Edmonton, specifically his first time at a Jewish summer camp.

“They say write what you know and that’s what I know,” Snider said. “Edmonton is a very unique place so I think there is a lot of material to work with.” 

It took about three years to complete production on Shop Class. 

“The way we did it, there were 12 drawings per second so there is quite a lot of work to do,” he said. “Animation is so cool [because] you can show what are they thinking about, what are they afraid of and really mine that material for comedy and big visuals.” 

Hearing from his fellow shop class survivors has been the most rewarding part of his latest project, Snider said.  

“They’ve been writing in with all of their memories, everything I forgot,” he said. “I could write an entire other film just based on the comments on Facebook.”

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