Children break things. They are stupid, capricious, immature and butter-fingered. Tradition has always preached these 'qualities' of children. So, would you put a camera in a child’s hands? NO! They’ll just break it...
At FilmCamp.TV we think differently. After all, we Indians have in the past, left the ‘serious’ business of nation-building and leadership to politicians who are stupid, capricious scoundrels and downright criminals, to say the least. So why not throw caution to the wind, break with tradition and bring filmmaking to children. The result - Junior FilmCamp.
We have 11 children in our first session of Junior FilmCamp. One of them is my son, Abhay (9). He keeps saying, "I'm in the camp and guess what? I don't need to pay?" Well, at FilmCamp, we could use the money. But the thrill of making a film is payment beyond measure.
We started late on April 8th. I made a wrong turn heading to Lal Bagh and suddenly wished the FilmCamp Cruizer could fly out of traffic. On arrival, I see 7 shiny and eager faces - Nishant, Siddarth, Salona, Alakananda, Kajol, Meera and Disha. We pick a shady tree by the glass house and sit down on the grass. Opening my laptop, I prop it on a foldable chair and jump to the burning question, "How do you think movies are made?" Answers start pouring in and Junior FilmCamp blast off.
Our children belong to a new generation, one exposed to media and technology in ways unfathomable when we were growing up. They have watched shows on TV and video games and have already figured out, to some extent, how this stuff is put together. We look at some clips from Sesame Street, a show with Julia Roberts talking to Elmo the cute and cuddly monster. The older teens are not too keen on watching kids stuff from Sesame Street. “This stuff is for kiddies. Why are we watching this,” they think. But that can't stop them from laughing at the piece. Hell, I can't stop laughing it myself. And I have watched it over a 100 times. Something about classics. You see them anew every time.
We watch the piece several times over, bouncing our observations back on forth. How was it written? What's in the acting that makes the characters so endearing? The framing and camera positions that facilitate a seamless edit. Why use a close-up versus a medium shot? The children get it. Aside the craft of filmmaking, its all about feeling and connecting between characters and the audience. We continue to laugh as we peel layer after layer of the movie, enjoying a different perspective every time.
When we bring out the show with Elmo and Whoopi Goldberg, it launches an animated discussion. This is a subtler piece. Whoopi's finer nuances in acting don't go unnoticed, even by 10-year-olds - the flick of an eyebrow, a fleeting frown or the enunciation of a word in a script. It’s sheer pleasure to teach children. They don’t come with the burden and baggage of Bollywood. Clean slates, fresh minds.
Armed with the tools we've just acquired, the kids watch some FilmCamp shorts made at workshops for adults. We screen Cover-Up, a suspense thriller. The kids are blow away. One can really tell a story in a minute and a half. That fact begins to really sink in. We follow Cover-Up with See You There, a youthful expression playing on the viewers’ preconceived notions about relationships. The older kids laugh.
We close with an assignment. Write a treatment for a 1-2 minute film. I call out some rules for the treatment. But I know they are going to break them. And that’s alright. At FilmCamp.TV we celebrate the breaking of rules.
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