Camp Day 1!

I didn't venture too far away from home for this update, but I traveled much farther in a different way.

I recently returned from a one-week filmaking camp where I worked as a counselor. Here, the other counselors and I helped 12-18 year old kids stumble their way through the process of filmaking, to end up with a finished piece by the end of the week. We worked with some fantastic speakers, which the kids would go to every morning to learn about which aspect of filmaking that they would be immersed in for the day, and I think that everyone involved got a lot out of it.

The schedule started off with Scriptwriting on Monday. We checked all the kids in, let them organize their things, and then we whisked them off to listen to Johannes (yes, my RIT friends, that Johannes) talk about what makes a good story. Then they were off and running into their groups to get started on their masterpieces. I had the youngest of the groups and they all wanted to work together in order to make one film instead of breaking into 2 groups to make two films.

About halfway through the day, we realized that there were just too many people, too many varying ideas, and not enough agreement. I had to divide them and finally the scripts started to develop! We had a creep-tastic story about an asylum patient and a neat story about a germaphobic guy who has left the house for the first time in years. After splitting up, both groups seemed much more into scriptwriting, but have you ever tried to get a group of 13 year olds to concentrate? Its like freakin' rocket science and I am no scientist my friends.

Soon, though, it was lunch time and we shuffled off to the cafeteria. Which, by the way, had zero air conditioning, a million bodies, and hot food. This becomes a major problem later in the week.

Other than that it was scriptwriting all day and some free time for the kids, which they enjoyed a lot...the counselors did too, taking turns napping. What a long day!