One of the things that I always try to do as a parent of 3 creative kids is to give them a variety of things to try, to push their creative buttons so to speak. And this weekend proved to be one of those times.It was Friday night and we had just gotten word that my daughters Saturday basketball game had been canceled. What had been a very full day previously, suddenly became wide open, and I realized I had no plans.. nothing to do with the kids. I really don't like to just sit at home with them.. waste a perfectly good day of time together, but I had no idea what to do. To make it more interesting.. I was low on funds for the weekend, meaning the typical activities of movies, swimming, etc. were not possible.
Suddenly, out of nowhere came an interesting idea. It hit me all at once, along with how I could pull it off, the rules and the structure. Immediately it became known as the "Calvin Family Film Festival".
Here's how this works.. Each kid chose a movie that we had on DVD (no rentals allowed). Then they were to pick one character and one scene from the film. The scene had to be less than 5 minutes in length, and had to be one that would work for our purposes, and timelines. What the kids would then do is assume the identity of their chosen character. We would load the scene onto the computer, and then identify every place where that character was shown. I would then go in my video editing software and splice the film in each spot. By the time we were done we had a list of specific things to shoot with our own camera that would be edited into the scene.
Due to this style of editing, you can see why we had to be careful about what scenes we could pick from. If the character was seen in a wide shot with other characters.. that would be too difficult to swap that character out. So the kids ended up picking mostly dialogue style scenes, shot in a back and forth style with other characters. Originally Tyler wanted his scene to be taken from one of my U2 concerts... the thought of him on stage with Bono was very cool for him. But with all the wide shots involved, and even matching the lighting to shoot close-ups, would prove too difficult to pull off in an afternoon. Plus I'd have to find him a guitar...
And suddenly the house was a buzz with the kids hard at work on solving their creating challenges. Finding clothes to match for costumes, and coming up with ideas for places to shoot footage that would match, or figuring out how to construct the "set".
In the end (It ended up being Sunday afternoon), each "film entry" was shown at the family festival. We had popcorn waiting, and each of the kids had not seen their sibling's work so that it would be a surprise. We had awards (brownies) for each kid.. not an overall winner so that the kids would be actually competing against one another, but awards for things we felt were successful solutions to their creative challenges. Then we enjoyed watching each film.
It was pretty fun watching the kids really freak out when we got to the final editing stage of their scene. I don't think what we were doing really sank in until after everything was shot and going into the computer. Suddenly watching themselves interact with people from their favorite films, with all the right timing, and sound.. it looked fairly convincing. Sure, I could have gone about 10 steps of perfection into this, trying for exact matches, but I kept reminding myself that this was for the kids, and that there were 3 of these to produce in only a few hours.
So here's the rundown of entry's into the 2007 Calvin Family Film Festival:
Entry 1: "Little Trouble Maker"
By Amanda
Amanda chose to play the role of the child trouble maker in "Cheaper by the Dozen".. the one that orchestrates Ashton Kutchers fall into a swimming pool and his getting attacked by a dog, due to the soaking of his underwear in meat. This was one of the easier ones to do as the scene proved to be simple and could be shot in our backyard and laundry room. Her challenge: come up with a way to shoot a close up of her behind a giant pile of ground beef.. without actually using any from the freezer.
Entry 2: "Meeting Harry"
By Tyler
Tyler, after getting his U2 idea rejected, went with another character: Ron Weasly from the Harry Potter movies. The scene was from the first film when Harry and Ron met on the train. In the scene, Ron and Harry talk to one another, Herminne enters and then Ron attempts to turn his pet rat yellow (no animals were harmed in the making of this film). The challenge here was to successfully recreate the train set up in such a way that what we shot could pass for a moving train. Although we really didn't get too close in this challenge, the shots go back and forth between Harry and Ron so quickly that it just about works. The shots where Harry and Ron look at each other smiling and laughing.. work especially well, and it is wacky seeing my son connect with a fictional character in a visually convincing way.
Entry 3: "Enter the Pirate"
By Little Calvin
LC picked one of his favorite flicks at the moment "Pirates of the Carribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest". What made this whole scene possible is the fact that we had just gotten a new book case, and the empty box was in the living room. Laid down on it's side, it resembled a coffin. Add to that his pirate Halloween costume, and the whole idea quickly came together. The scene: Jack Sparrow's coffin escape, as he blasts his way out of a coffin and rows to his ship using the coffin's original inhabitant's skeleton leg. The challenge here was finding a wide enough shot in dark enough light. Although we mostly pull this off (and lots of computer generated fog helped), you can still see the whites of our piano keyboard in the background (I was not about to move the piano for this... sorry!)
Sooo, the awards:
"Best Use of processed fake meat": Amanda
"Best conversation with a fictional wizard": Tyler
"Best entrance by a pirate": Little Calvin
All in all, it proved to be a fun idea. It filled up the weekend, provided family entertainment, allowed me to spend time with each of the kids, and didn't cost a dime. I think the festival may have to become an annual tradition.
