Starting a film making club for kids

[Travers400]

I'm an AV Technician in a secondary school and I've had an idea to start a film making club. Now the school doesn't have that much professional equipment. We have quite a few old JVC Everios, 2 Canon 1100D's, some tripods and Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. Now the school is in financial trouble, so buying expensive equipment is out of the question at the moment. I personally have a Canon 100D and a Rode Videomic Go I can use and I don't mind buying little bits and pieces to get it up and running, then hopefully the school will want to invest some money into it.

Before I thought of this idea my original plan was to start a theatrical tech club, but seeing as the school doesn't put on that many productions the students will have nothing to work towards and lose interest, as this has happened before. So this is why I had the idea for a film making club, it will give the students an end goal. The age range is from 12-15 and I'm thinking on having a limit of 10 people to start with.

I want to make this interesting for the students whilst teaching them the fundamentals of filmmaking. I'm not a professional film maker myself but have done a lot of filming/editing for work and hopefully I can help the students achieve something.

If you were running a club like this, what sort of projects would you do to keep it interesting? With 12 year olds I want to steer clear of the acting side of things for the moment, as I feel it could end up looking very silly. I aim to show them about the equipment then let them loose on a project. I had an idea about a school news program but I think that maybe a bit too advanced for the moment due to the deadlines that the students will have to follow.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

 

[directorik]

I have run a film program for kids that age.

First: they do not need to use professional equipment.
Second: everything they do will end up looking very silly.

Let the kids decide what they want to do. You show them how
the equipment works and let them make the projects that
interest them. The kids will learn a little something and have
fun. The end project will look silly. They will love it, their parents
will love it, their friends will love it.

 

[Alcove Audio]

My daughter, who is in 7the grade, periodically gets "shoot a video" class assignments. Despite the lack of technical skills - at least on the actual production side - some of the videos are quite good for 12/13 year olds. Me daughter enjoys it, so she's in the video club (and the drama club and... sorry....)

Most of them shoot with their phones. If there is not a computer to use for editing at home there are several available at the school.

Yes, they can be very silly. This is because they are self conscious. As they do it more and more they will become less self conscious. As they learn to plan a little bit they will also improve.

They need a designated project they can apply in broad terms, if that makes sense. One project my daughter was assigned in her video club was "an interview with..." So it had to be some sort of interview. It could be a real or fictitious being. My daughters interview was with her imaginary friend (whom she played), who felt abandoned. One of her classmates did a chase scene - the person didn't want to be interviewed.