Yeah, We Could Make Movies

So, I haven't blogged for a while. Science fair, spring break starting, family in town . . . you know how it goes. We're on spring break this week, but I still won't have an excess of time, because the San Antonio Christian Worldview Film Festival.

Our school was given two free student passes, and our principal offered them to my daughter, the budding young actress who loves to edit video. (The festival organizers graciously allowed me to use the second pass so she wouldn't be going alone.) It's a five day event: two and a half days of workshops and two and a half days of film festival. We get into the whole shebang.

I wasn't sure how excited to get about this at first. For one thing, this is my spring break. I have all sorts of stuff I need to get done this week -- lesson planning, curriculum writing, costume shopping, plus just all the family stuff that gets put off until "I have some extra time." Going to this thing all day for five days would really kill my Spring Break productivity and make me scramble for the next several weeks.

But I also wondered how beneficial it would really be for my daughter. If these workshops are for
serious film-makers, how much would she get out of it? She may not have the base knowledge or background to even understand what they are talking about.

Never fear. "Film-Making 101" with Stacie Graber to the rescue.

Our first workshop yesterday. Perfect. Everything we needed to know about the basic process of putting a real movie together. Oh, my goodness. Are we both psyched now!

The second workshop was more of an acting workshop (Exploring the Spiritual Lives of your Characters), so it had immediate use for us also. And it was also inspiring.

I have always had in the back of my mind that my daughter might enjoy something in the area of film-making someday. But not until yesterday did I realize how doable this is for her NOW. How much potential there is for her to use these skills and interests of hers TODAY. Or soon, at least. I'm listening to the speakers and thinking, "She could make a short film to submit next year."

Next year. Holy cow. That's exciting!

What's more, I'm thinking, I would enjoy this. Not every part of it, but certainly the writing. Certainly the directing. Certainly the whole create-the-vision-for-this-thing part.

Daughter and I talked on the way there yesterday about how conferences like this are often a lot of "rah-rah" to get people excited about their topic . . . and how susceptible she and I are to the "rah-rah." We are easily excited. But really, I think this is something worth our getting excited about.

So, "rah-rah"! Let's see what comes of this.