digmedia

Last night was a hoot. I was a judge for our local middle school's film class year end film competition, sitting through three hours of film clips. They had a gazillion categories - best film, actors, cinematography, editing, music videos, commercials, and on and on.... Popular themes seemed to be zombies and vampires. Prizes will be presented next week at a big gala (dress-up required).

This middle school film class is one of the most popular in the school (7th and 8th grade classes), and the enthusiasm of the kids was really evident in the films. Were they great films? Uh... no, but there were some great moments and great laughs. BTW, one of the films by some 8th-graders (on Cyberbullying) was accepted this year at NFFTY (National Film Festival for Talented Youth) in Seattle. Another film was accepted for a state-wide student festival. So these kids are doing well....

I am convinced that there are three or four of those students who would have successful careers given the opportunity. But the opportunities seem to end at the middle school level. These kids split into two separate high schools, neither of which have film programs. The closest high school that has something (and boy, do they have a great program) is 25 miles away in another county. That school has an entire wing dedicated to teaching "the arts." If only we could have that here.

One of the other judges was a former Disney executive and as we talked afterwards, he was complaining about our school district's lack of a clue about film.

digmedia

btw OCELITE:

One of the other judges had just returned from touring California film schools with her HS daughter. They were IN LOVE with Chapman/Dodge! I think that jumped to #1 on their list.

gladiatorbird

That sounds like fun, digmedia.
We understand the 'falling in love' with Chapman thing. There is something special going on at Dodge, no question about it.

maddenmd

Very cool, Dig. I wonder if these kids could form a "club" and continue working on their films even after the support of the school ends. Maybe another mentoring opportunity for you?

digmedia

Hmmmm... The teacher for the class is holding a summer film camp. He's been doing that for several years and it is well-attended. Perhaps I'll help out there. I'm having fun preparing a unit on scriptwriting, taking the info from Chapter 3 in my essay book on screenplays. I then converted one of the essays (the one about the kid entering a new school) and turned it into a 6-page script, to demonstrate the elements (and script format and terms). Fun, fun.

loveblue

digmedia:
Are you professional film worker? is it hard to turn a novel into screenplays?

digmedia

I'm not. I've only written one feature-length screenplay and was told the story would work as a novel, but not as a screenplay... and also... there were not enough explosions!

digmedia

"Those who can, do. Those who can't do, write books about it."