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In search of the next Spielberg
WELCOME BAHAMAS - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - 2007
In search of the next Spielberg
Youngsters learn the secrets of moviemaking
A workshop that teaches children as young as six how to make a movie was a big hit at the Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF) in December 2006.
Each day during that prestigious festival, youthful would-be directors learned to write a screenplay, shoot with a digital camera, integrate soundtracks, edit the final takes and then burn their creations on DVD discs.
BIFF founder Leslie Vanderpool discovered the programme, called The Director?s Cut, on a visit to Toronto, Ontario, in 2005. She lost no time inviting the creators, Bryan and Lori Goldmintz, to bring their moviemaking classroom to Nassau.
?I realized we needed to do something [like this] for Bahamian kids,? Vanderpool told Welcome Bahamas. ?It?s so much fun, and so educational.?
Upon her return to The Bahamas, Vanderpool began looking for sponsors for The Director?s Cut and soon found them. The Goldmintzs were ?really excited about coming to Nassau,? she said; it was the first time they had taken their programme to another country.
?We went to local schools and did a lot of outreach to let kids know about the project,? said Vanderpool, emphasizing to parents that the instruction was free.
?We hope to have this programme become a regular part of BIFF in years to come, and perhaps incorporated into school curriculums. The opportunities are limitless. Who knows what
it might do to spark [interest in] some young person and give them the incentive to follow a dream??
Vanderpool noted that Veronica Owens, parliamentary secretary for the Ministry of Education, attended the course and was much impressed.
Innovative programme
The Director?s Cut is the brainchild of educators Bryan and Lori Goldmintz, but their objective goes beyond moviemaking.
?Why not encourage youngsters to use their imaginations and creativity by teaching them to make movies?? Bryan asks. ?We introduced the programme at our school just north of Toronto five years ago. We had only six kids at first; today there are over 1,200, ages six to 18, enrolled in classes.
?I was teaching eighth grade back then and I?ve always been interested in the cutting edge of technology, so it was natural I took up digital photography and then I explored the moviemaking process with the idea to use it as a learning experience.?
Today, the Goldmintzs? portable movie studios can be set up in any classroom with an electrical plug.
?We bring along laptops, green screens, video cameras?everything required to make a Hollywood-style film. For younger kids we offer ?Toying Around,? [a programme] in which they bring in their own action figures, and we demonstrate how to use them to make a movie.?
The Goldmintzs also show the students a scene from the movie Mrs Doubtfire, in which comedian Robin Williams ?gives a boring TV show a boost by using flamboyant animation and adding a hilarious dialogue. Also, we show scenes from The Incredible Hulk to demonstrate how stop-action digital filming works.
?Some kids have been so inspired by this course they?ve gone on to film school. One of our instructors, a recent film school graduate, is now encouraging other kids to experience the art of moviemaking.?
Hands-on experience
In The Bahamas, The Director?s Cut staff set up six shooting tables in a suite in Atlantis on Paradise Island. When they arrived, the school children listened intently as Lori explained the rudiments of making adigital movie.
Atop each table was a laptop computer, a digital movie camera, an eight-by-ten-inch photograph of a jungle that was used as a backdrop and models of a tyrannosaurus rex, a brontosaurus and Godzilla, the Japanese movie industry?s predatory mutant dinosaur, along with some modelling clay and plastic toy heroes.
Teams of four gathered around, taking turns playing producer, director, camera operator and props manager. Among other things, the students learned to make stop-action animation sequences, creating the illusion of movement. The youngsters picked up the basics in 10 minutes or so and were soon creating storylines around the props.
Instructors at the BIFF Director?s Cut programme and recent graduates from Toronto?s film school are now mentoring newcomers to the world of moviemaking.
At Atlantis, they explained the use of mini props and backdrop pictures, as well as lighting?from a simple flashlight beam to small table lamps positioned for dramatic effect. The effects of front, side and overhead lighting were demonstrated as the prehistoric monsters were moved here and there about the tables.
Rudiments of digital movie camera filming were explained, including ways to avoid the ?paintbrush? effect: when novice photographers wave cameras about like paintbrushes.
Students experimented with camera control, close-ups, soft focus, zooms and unusual camera angles using small tripods.
The end result was a two-minute DVD movie. Every youngster left the course with his or her own DVD and enough skills to direct and produce a home movie to surprisingly high standards.
Goldmintz says The Director?s Cut is looking into offering more courses in The Bahamas. Further information about the programme can be found at www.thedirectorscut.ca.
Releasing creativity
?We don?t want kids feeling we are doing the thinking for them, so we offer only basic instruction, then pretty much leave them to their own devices.
?Children today are accustomed to digital technology. The ease and sheer excitement of using the technology allows children of all ages to imagine, create and define ? as never before.
?We live in a world where youth aged between five and 18 are defined through their own culture ? the Digital Culture. These kids are able to multitask and navigate throughout the world with a variety of digital instruments, including MP3 players, DVD players, instant chat, text messaging and digital video. The Director?s Cut is there to promote this culture.?
While memory work is still important in the classroom, Bryan feels too many teachers today are relying too much on the rote method.
?So many kids benefit from being free to express themselves. Students who are working on storylines, publishing stories or comic books?another part of our programme?soak up language skills. They are introduced to a whole new world of communication.
?It?s incredible just how creative they are,? enthuses Bryan. ?You would be amazed at the results.?
Sidebar:
Spielberg starts young
Like the youngsters who took part in The Director?s Cut Programme in Nassau, Producer Steven Spielberg began his movie career early.
He was only 12 when he produced his first feature, an 8-minute western called The Last Gun. Two years later, he did two more: Escape to Nowhere, a 40-minute feature shot with an 8mm camera and Battle Squad, in which he mixed Second World War footage with sequences shot at Phoenix airport.
In 1958 Spielberg was already using techniques similar to the stop-action techniques used by The Director?s Cut. Even at this early age, he had learned how to make stationary aircraft look as though they were travelling at supersonic speed.
By 16, as a high school student in Phoenix, Spielberg wrote and directed his first large-scale independent movie. His 140-minute production was a science fiction adventure called Firelight, based on a story his sister, Nancy, had written about a UFO attack. The movie, with a budget of $400, was shown in a local movie theatre and generated a profit of $100. It was Spielberg?s first commercial success.
In an interview with the American Film Institute, Spielberg recalled his earliest moviemaking memory and the enjoyment he got from crashing toy trains into each other.
In his early teens, he made other amateur 8mm adventure movies with, and for, family and friends. He charged admission and his sister sold popcorn.
Much later, he was to write, direct and produce some of the biggest box office hits in Hollywood history, including Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Jurassic Park and Schindler?s List (both in 1993), War of the Worlds, and Munich (both in 2005).
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