July 23, 2003
Film students focused class
Dan Glass teaches movie production course for 8-12 year olds
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
With six budding Steven Spielbergs nipping at his heels, Daniel Glass had a wild ride this week in his Studio One - Movie Production class.
A commercial producer for TV7&4 and an award-winning independent filmmaker, Glass is a veteran of creating and editing compelling visual images. As he worked this week with students ages 8-12, these six technologically savvy, highly creative youngsters kept him on his creative toes.
"I would say the kids are almost beyond what I was ready to teach them," said Glass, who kept altering his lesson plans to stay ahead of his students. "I could show them something and the next minute they were ready to learn something new."
"I think with this bunch, I found them very creative and ready to start making up stories immediately - I just gave them the tools to do it with video," he noted. "They're very sharp and picking up on things fast, I'm pretty impressed with them."
The Movie Production class is part of Northwestern Michigan College's College for Kids offerings this summer. The class met for five sessions over two weeks, with the final session today, and was instantly captivated by the material. Arriving with a digital video camera in hand they zipped through the concepts of generating ideas, storyboarding, shooting techniques and scene sequencing.
Each student wore the hat of actor, producer and camera operator during the class, getting a well-rounded intro to the basics of filmmaking.
"I like to learn all these new film techniques and how to edit," said Garrett Sieloff, 10. "I made a movie where my sisters had their room in a big mess and they have to hurry up and put it all away by putting in under the bed, into closets and under their sheets."
Siblings Whitney, 8, and Stevie Fulton, 11, collaborated on a film showing how to make brownies. While a simple topic, with directions coming straight off the back of a commercial brownie mix, the exercise steeped both in the process of filming a tutorial. They learned about camera angles, zoom shots, effective narration and pacing. And gobbled it all up.
"It's fun, it's cool and I love to video tape," said Whitney Fulton, a student at Courtade Elementary School.
As the class began their session on editing Monday evening, all eyes were on Whitney, the star of the Brownie show. As she worked through the baking steps on the screen, Glass taught the basic techniques of editing using iMovie software. He gave pointers on timing that would keep a film interesting for viewers, such when to cut part of or increase the film speed for a lengthy sequence.
For Whitney, this close scrutiny of her work was harder than being in front of the camera.
"When everybody sees it, it is kind of embarrassing," she noted. "Like butterflies flying around and I thought, 'Oh, it's going to be stupid.'"
In addition to filming a movie on a topic they chose, Glass previously assigned the class to film making a bowl of cereal as an exercise prompting them to think visually. He taught timing techniques by having them film someone running. Glass also plans to teach them the basics of interviewing on video and give an introduction to writing dialogue.
Camera techniques taught included wide, medium and close up shots plus choosing angles and positioning. The students also quickly picked up on the indefinable nuances of how to make things flow together.
Throughout it all, the underlying theme Glass found was his students' eagerness to learn and their out-of-the-box creativity.
"What I find them saying is that we're going to make a movie about genetically modified animals," said Glass, who in August will teach a class for older students on movie production.
"So they said we need two computer hackers and laser beams shooting down the hall. Then someone asked, 'Can there be a secret agent spy from Paraguay?' and another said let's have tap dancing gorilla men."