This week is spring break for many students across San Diego County, but the learning hasn’t stopped for some young kids who are working on their own original short films.
The Media Arts Center of San Diego is collaborating with the San Diego Foundation to educate the spring breakers in the basics of movie-making. They are all 6 to 12 years old, from public and charter schools.
Beatrix Wyngard, 8, is in second grade at Adams Elementary in Normal Heights. She said she is happy to be learning away from her regular classroom. “It’s a lot funner,” she told KPBS News, “because instead of having to learn a lot about math, we are mostly learning how to make a movie.”
The week-long camp uses project-based learning with students divided into three cohorts. Each cohort works on grade-level appropriate assignments including stop motion movies, editing, and sound design.
It is not a competition, according to Larry DaSilveira, the Media Arts Center's education coordinator. “It’s about understanding the importance of the process over the end product,” he said, “and being free to make mistakes and experiment and that the end product is important, but the process is really more important.”
Even at this young age, there are creative differences.
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“You have two different perspectives. If you can combine them together it makes it even better," said Devone Jones, an award-winning professional filmmaker and one of the teaching artists hired to share their experience with students. "If not, you have to take one for the team and say, ‘Okay, I’ll do your idea this time, next time we’re going to do my idea.’”
Scholarships and grant money helped many of the students attend this week’s camp for free at the City Heights Library Idea Lab.
There are three more week-long media and tech camps scheduled in April. Tuition is $275. Financial aid is available and more information can be found at www.mediaartscenter.org/camps
The premiere of student films produced during the camps happens on Friday with a showcase for parents and friends.
