ECS students thrive at the virtual Skills Canada national competition

Two students from the Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) had terrific showings at the recent virtual Skills Canada national competition. 

Shay Frederick won the silver medal in hairstyling, while Waneeke Baptiste came in sixth in two-dimensional character computer animation. Frederick and Baptiste completed their tests in the last week of May, and learned of the results on June 15.

Frederick is the latest hairstyling student to enjoy success at nationals, as ECS has had a number of medallists in the secondary and post-secondary hairstyling competitions over the years.

Frederick was proud to come away with second place in the competition. 

“It feels really good,” said Frederick. “Having put in all of the hard work and everything, it feels really good to have some of it paid off.” 

For the hairstyling competition, there were three separate mannequin heads to work on. One was a women’s updo, which was a braiding and bridal hairstyle. The next was a men’s cut and style, in which the hair started really long and she had to cut it. 

Then there was a women’s cut and style, which she could colour in advance, but she didn’t know what the cut was, making it difficult to plan. 

All three had to be matched to a picture within a certain amount of time. They were really difficult. 

The provincial competition was held virtually as well, and that helped Frederick with her preparations.

“I had a proctor, and she was in meetings a few days before. She had a whole list of everything she had to look out for and what she had to mark. Those papers got sent off, along with pictures of everything I did before, during and after the competitions, and videos during the competition also got sent off.” 

Everyone who was entered had to complete the same project and meet the same requirements. 

“The girl from Ontario that beat me, hers was really good,” said Frederick.  

She credited long-time ECS cosmetology instructor Joyce Mack for her assistance.

Frederick was supposed to compete at Skills Canada provincials last year, but those plans were abandoned due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

This year they found out that provincials were a go a couple of weeks before the event.

Frederick has always enjoyed doing makeup, hair and nails, and helping someone feel beautiful, so cosmetology was a natural for her.

“Once Mrs. Mack talked to me about Skills, I was really excited to get started on that,” said Frederick. 

She will be studying nursing at Saskatchewan Polytechnic in Saskatoon this fall, and she would like to go to eventually become an ophthalmologist.  

Baptiste said she was really nervous at Skills Canada. She didn’t expect to ever make it to nationals, and she was excited to be there.  

The rules were stricter than provincials, and the level of competition was obviously much tougher.

“For the national competition, I had to create an animation that has someone sneezing as the conflict, and I have to enter a wildcard that I had to use in the animation. And the wildcard that I was given was a fly swatter. So I had to create an animation that involved someone sneezing and a fly swatter being used in some way, shape or form.”

She had six hours to create an animated video up to 15 seconds in length. It’s a lot more work than people might think.

“I originally told myself that I should make the animation shorter, so that it will focus more on the quality instead of the quantity.” 

The story she came up with took more time than she thought, but she had a great time and she was pleased with the finished product.

“Being able to create an animation that is coloured and edited … and in the whole entire process to create animation, and do it all in six hours, it was impressive,” she said.

Baptiste had to draw the frames individually over and over again, while making it different every time and keeping in mind animation principles. And she might have to go back to fix a previous mistake.  

Once she saw some of the works created by the other entrants, Baptiste could see the talent of her rivals and the level of competition. 

“The other animations were amazing. There was a cat animation, and it was so well done. And there was this alien one that was really well coloured and really well shaded.” 

Baptiste, who is a self-taught artist, needed to enter as part of a two-person team. She selected her brother Koivu to be her partner, but he didn’t have to do anything.

Her video has been posted to the ECS Facebook page, and the comments that she has received have been fantastic.  

Baptiste said she is going to take some additional courses online, and looks forward to working on her art and animation while learning about things she is interested in. Eventually she plans to study animation at the post-secondary level.