Making Movies with Kids
I've been co-teaching a summer camp at the Flynn all week. We've been making movies with 16 boisterous 8-10 yr old boys and girls. I am amazed to say that we have managed to make a different film each day.
The kids play ALL the roles except director, editor and cinematographer. The amazing thing is that they take their roles VERY seriously. Every day they switch so everyone can try different sized acting parts and alternate crew positions.
The students also wrote the scripts which we shot rough cuts of on our first day of camp. The difference between the rough cuts and the finished product is HUGE. But it is interesting to see that the "essence" still remains.
They chose the genres after I showed them clips from a ton of different movies. The winners were drama, adventure and suspense but there are elements of action, musicals and horror as well. They like to have battle scenes in every movie and a lot of death scenes too.
I go home every night after an all day camp and edit ALL night long. I calculated my hours and have gotten about 12 hours sleep all week. I plan on dropping dead any moment. Is it worth it? You tell me:
Tomorrow is our final screening when we show the parents what we have been doing all week. There will be popcorn. We are also shooting a documentary and going on a field trip to the Roxie. I'll miss the kids but can't wait to get a full night's sleep...
6 comments:
Can I come be in your class. They're all great little films. But I think I like the one about the greedy rich men and the explorers. Love those dudes in their snazzy hats!
I like the effed up elevator one. "Let's pretend I ate some peyote and then tried to find my water bottle in the Flynn building!"
So what did the parents think? Those credits looked like a lot of rich kid names. Is it a rich kid camp?
YES YES! Let's all make movies together! Junk Thief, the hats the explorers were wearing have a special significance for me as a Junk Thiefess (check out this old bloggy entry) - so that film meant a lot to me in weird ways.
Molly, I think I may have had TOO much fun when editing the Water Bottle movie. I blame it on the fact that it was the middle of the night and I was living on coffee and carrot sticks - my head got a little funny.
The parents seemed excited and the feedback was great. these days, rich kid names are pretty popular and camps tend to cost a bit of cash...
Thanks for letting me steal from you for the Flynn blog. You rock.
not all rich kids -- just well educated parents who know how to raise well-rounded kids. some kids go on scholarship and some kids go because they love theater. camps are spendy these days. great kids and even greater teaching artists who put their heart in soul into their work -- make the world go round -- and make this flynnarts coordinator's job so much easier! bravo! best camp ever!
My pleasure Lani - I love spreading the blog love around! You rock!
Thanks for the clarification Suzanne - those kids really were awesome. Every single one of them brought something special and unique to the table and I am not just saying that. We had our little success stories and moments of, "Ah hah!" with some of them and it was a joy to watch them become little actors and filmmakers. WOW!
FlynnARts ROCKS! ANd it sure is nice to sleep in again, phew! ;)
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