inspiration strikes!

Things are movin into the next cycle at panther with optimism and vigor. I'm lookin forward to this evenings activity entitled "club d-bot", but first i need to finish blogging the successful completion of our film cycle...
After our field trip to TCU, I continued to try to get the kids comfortable using and acting in front of the digital camera before filming our competion piece. i strongly encourage fun activities such as the one that follows before tackling a project. i called the activity "improv dialogue day". they had already worked with reading from a script, well, one line anyway, but now i wanted they're creative brains to work a bit. so, i had each of them write on scrap paper the name of a movie star, cartoon character, or superhero, and a place. i added a few myself, then we threw them in two hats and i had them pair up into groups. the groups then picked thier characters from one hat and a place from the other. using this info they then had to work together to write a short story board before filming. then the improvisations began. one included jasmine as bionce meeting the little mermaid, played by taylor, at a pet store in the mall. bionce decided to buy the little mermaid from the pet store and take her home to her aquarium. another included marcus playing the hulk and gerel playing vin diesel at a boxing match. for the next half hour this turned into a full production with a makeshift ring, audience, and a few of us playing round-number card girls, including me. it was a blast.
after this activity, i felt the next time we met, we could get serious about starting the movie. here's where a good friend and fantastic educactor saved the day... ms. mays gathered the teens in the teen room, sat them down and gave them a stern yet encouraging talk about the best buy grant and the film competition that has been presented. the way she interacts with the kids is amazing. she has earned their trust, so she's able to do something i'm struggling to learn. that is to be strict and direct about the effort needed for the project. if they will be disciplined in helping us with the project, it will be a success, but if not, they shouldn't think of volunteering. to the point works with these kids. next, while we had them focused, we discussed themes and plotlines, which led to character ideas. the character ideas i loved because the kids decided to pull from various heroes painted on their club walls, including martin luther king, micheal jordan, tina turner,ect. then, after the teens who promised their dedication chose their character, we helped them begin to write storyboards for thier characters. in three meetings, we filmed about two to three characters scenes a day, and had a great time doing it. different teens used the camera at different times, and then sat in and helped with a hurried editing session on the last day. finally, we titled our project "leaders of love".
i learned quite a few things from our film project. one includes how to talk to the teens in order to get them serious and motivated about an important project. on the other hand, once a project is started, just let things roll and the kids usually develop the project deeper than you ever dreamed.
if i could do it all over, i'd get another day for filming, a total of four would be perfect, and foreshadow the day of editing. editing is tough and for some it seems not as fun as the acting, so let the teens know its part of the deal. if they act in the show, they must help edit. in fact, when we assigned them characters, it would have been smart to assign them an editing job as well, including "music editor" or "scene transition editor" or "film order editor". that will definately help next time, for next years "2006 2nd annual panther film festival". here's how this years went...
we had one teen design the admission tickets, and you couldn't get in without one. it had the time and place, so at 4:45pm we had a line outside the teen room waiting. then when the doors opened, snacks were laid out for our audience (only 5 at a time could enter to keep order) and the room was set up like a theater. for the next hour, not only did we premier "leaders of love", but also all the stop-motion animation films made in the past two months, and all films made from activities with the digital camera. we also played northside's dodgeball film, "play hard", which our kids loved.
next year, i think starting a tradition of a film festival may be a great idea, and before they start working on a new one, the kids should view the films from the previous year for inspiration. i enjoy the fact that i'm starting to see possibilities for long term tradition. its very inspiring.
talk about inspiring, saafir referred me to a website to guide me throught the next cycle. the next cycle at panther is going to pull the kids back from media to our information technology realm and the world of crickets. out of ideas, i struggled to decide where to go next. then saafir pulled up the website that, until a few months ago, was pretty sparse. now its booming with variuos cricket activities (search "pie ideas" on google and its the first website of the group). so instead of me picking the activities, i brought some jolly ranchers to the club and threw a couple at the teens if they did me the favor of checking out the website and deciding themselves what's next. i've got a list with two ideas per teen, and look forward to completing them all, including tonight's, where we'll be programing light sensitive, dancing doodle-bots and creating "club d-bot" with snacks and music and all. should be a blast, and i've got to get it all ready. wish me luck.
myles