Project Brief: The Kids

Filmmaking is a combination creativity, teamwork, and technology. Teaching children the art of storytelling through making home movies gives them a chance to express their ideas, develop their concepts into a complete story, plan and produce then execute the project, gain self-awareness, build self-esteem, communicate their thoughts, project their voices,  create the dialogue to communicate the message behind their story, make decisions about props, wardrobe, hair, and makeup, learn how to crew,  and ultimately work together to realize a collective vision.

Spending time creating short films with my nieces has been one of my favorite memories throughout their childhood. Over the past 10 years Maddy, Lizzy, Jayme and I have created dozens of narrative short films and a few music videos. Our work is mostly unscripted. The girls are natural storytellers and improvise their lines. Together we collaborate on set to figure out the story, the arc, their costumes, their characters and how the film should end. We forego expensive equipment and lengthy set ups in favor completing our project in just a few hours. In our finished work, we always include the bloopers in our end credits so that we have a record of all that went into our afternoon together. Over the years, the girls have learned about pre-production, production, directing, writing, shooting, set decorations, costumes, continuity, lighting, slate, script supervisors etc. 

The stories are always reflective of their lives, interests, and ideas at the time of shooting. These films capture their youth and innocence but demonstrate their tenacity, resiliency, and ability to creates stories that touch our hearts and inspire our minds. I am so proud of these girls.