FilmScene hosted a Film Camp over spring break for kids to learn and experiment with the different aspects of filmmaking.
FilmScene hosts multiple film camps for kids every summer. The spring break camp wrapped up last week, taking place from March 16 to March 20.
“FilmScene has such a commitment to bringing underseen and independent films to young people both on and off campus. As well as its youth workshops throughout the year,” Tariku Krob, a first-year student in the cinematic arts program at the University of Iowa and a member of the Bijou Film Board, said.
The camp is directly sponsored by Hills Bank and Trust Company, representing the amount of investment put into the program. Each day was based on a different theme: Monday was claymation, Tuesday was Lego, Wednesday was green screen and multiplane, Thursday was pixilation, and Friday wrapped up with “buildings, cars, and things that go BOOM!”
The claymation day focused on teaching kids the squash, stretch, and appeal principles of animation. FilmScene allowed the students to “create a huge array of zany characters and worlds for them to exist in,” according to its website.
Lego animation lessons consist of using the brick toys, frequently used in stop-motion and animation projects.
Reaching the middle of the week, kids learned the harder challenges of the Green Screen, focusing more on what’s happening in the background rather than the foreground. They also became more familiar with Multi-pane animation, an innovative practice that uses multiple planes of glass to create various layers.
“Animation is such a powerful medium, so kids learning this process is definitely valuable,” Sam Shoneman, a first-year film student at the UI and familiar with the animation process, said.
During pixelation lessons, students act like puppets, through an array of trickery and clever techniques, making them also appear animated in a sense. This is considered a campgoer favorite by FilmScene.
Finally, the final section, which took place on Friday, was dedicated to creation and destruction — kids had the chance to create their own structures with amateur materials, and then the whole camp ended with a bang as kids learned how to make a well-designed explosion.
Every one of these days takes place at the Pedestrian Mall cinema, offering a film-heavy location to provide these kids with a great opportunity to further both their skills and their abilities. It offers an interdisciplinary development, showing kids many outlets to express themselves and their ideas thematically and visually.
“Learning stop motion and animation could help me better comprehend several other areas in film. I believe that having a well-rounded baseline understanding of as many aspects of film as you can is extremely beneficial when pursuing film. It enables you to approach projects with a widened mindset,” Rowan Koehler, a third-year student at the UI, said.
While the kids do not get advanced training in these other parts of film, the introduction of such special investment into their own development definitely can show them how the other parts make it work, too.
“My younger sister is the most artistically inclined person I’ve ever met and she attended animation camp at FilmScene a few times while growing up,” Elijah Tarr, a member of Bijou said. “Definitely had a part in shaping her into who she is today.”