Today was the first day of Children's Media Project's Reel Expressions Filmmaking Intensive! Six dedicated youth producers are collaborating to create a professional-quality production that will hopefully make it into CMP's Reel Expressions youth film festivals.
Youth producer Zoe, who created the animated short "A Problem" in the summer 2014 DROP TV youth employment program, was among the intensive filmmakers present.
We kicked things off with some improv acting exercises:
Next, the class learned about the Hero's Journey and began brainstorming their own story ideas. Concentrating on character psychology and motivation, the class is making great progress towards beginning their script tomorrow and be filming by the end of the week.
Stay tuned for more updates from our Reel Expressions All Stars!
Our annual fundraising drive begins today in support of the official launch of CMP's Production House Apprenticeship Program.
The Production House, re-branded under Forge Media, is an Apprenticeship Program, and provides advanced CMP youth (youth who have "leveled up" through our programs) with the opportunity to continue their education and launch their career in the media industry.
Forge employs these apprentices to shoot professional commercial productions for local businesses and organizations.
This not only provides our apprentices with the opportunity to gain valuable work experience, but allows us to provide area organizations and businesses with high-quality, but low-cost productions.
This is a huge undertaking, and we need your support to reach our goal of $20,000, so please donate by going to forgemedia.org, and clicking on any of the donation levels! No amount is too great or small, and every bit helps, so give today! Support the local community and make an investment in the young people that can brighten its future!
In the following photos the the students are in the second stage of production. We are filming a super hero trailer featuring Bang and Electro. This trailer includes how the hero Bang gains the ability to teleport. During the production sequence we brain stormed then came up with a bare bone script. Then the script gets edited. After that we went into the part shown below (filming).
The scene of Bang getting his mask is being slated
Student is using the boom pole for audio
Shot of Bangs expression when his Mother tells him of responsibility to come
Media Magic has been learning about banned books, and why we think books shouldn't be banned. A book can teach us life lessons, help us improve our reading, or even inspire us to write our own books.
We made these Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to show what we have learned about the issue of banned books. To make the PSAs, we broke up into small groups and came up with original ways to share information with the public about this issue.
For yet another week Media Magic has been working at the Adriance Library making projects that share information about banned books. Many of us were surprised by some of the books that have been challenged or banned. Here is a video of us talking about some of our favorite banned books:
Our next project on banned books is writing and filming original PSAs (Public Service Announcements) to spread awareness of the issue. We had a lot of fun planning and filming them. Here are some photos from the process.
Media Magic has been spending Mondays at the Adriance Library in Poughkeepsie working on special media projects for the library. Because it's Banned Books Week, as well as the kick-off for the Big Read, the teens from Media Magic decided to take selfies with their favorite banned books. What's your favorite banned book?
Vivianna and Madeleine like "Bone" by Jeff Smith
Brianna likes "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini and Jason likes "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey
Michael likes "Fat Kid Rules the World" by KL Going
Teen Librarian Martha likes "The Pigman" by Paul Zindel and Media Magic teacher Maya likes "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman
Jack and Brianna like "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair
Jason likes "Will Grayson Will Grayson" by John Green and David Levithan
Khadija likes "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer
Ari and Azzan like "Bone" by Jeff Smith and Shyhiem likes "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
Dyasia likes "I Hunt Killers" by Barry Lyga
Dyasia likes "I Hunt Killers" by Barry Lyga and Dyreek likes "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes
Azzan likes "Maus" by Art Spiegelman and Ari likes "Bone" by Jeff Smith
