Slice of Life: It’s Movie Time!

(This is part of the Slice of Life activity over at Two Writing Teachers).

My seven year old has this vision: he wants to make a movie.

No doubt, this inspiration comes from watching his older brothers and friends shoot a movie just about every year in our neighborhood (and one was even featured in a local film festival). But he is determined, and excited, so I have been helping him talk through the storyline, gather up his friends, and I’ve been running the Flip video camera for him. I’ll also do much of the editing.

But it has been fun to watch his mind at work. The story — called Robbers on the Loose! — is about the theft of a jewelry box from the Queen  of France (played by my niece) by a fortune teller/robber (my son, with too-big fake beard), and the police (friends) chasing the robbers (my son and friends) to recover the stolen piece. Oh, and our dog is in the movie, too.

Yesterday, we shot the first scenes with my son and my niece in the woods near our house. While they know the storyline, they are ad-libbing the dialogue. So, well, many calls of “cut” and “let’s try that again!” They were so cute! And they were psyched about the footage we got. They think it was the best video ever created, and we’re not even done (gotta love the enthusiasm of a seven year old). The hardest part is to make them speak loud enough for the camera.
fortune teller and queen

At home, I moved the video that we got into iMovie and we began a little editing. Then, I decided to try out the tool in iMovie to create movie trailers. What a blast! We set the whole thing to the ‘adventure setting’ and the movie trailer came out like a Steven Spielberg production. We just need some more footage to liven it up a bit more. That will come today, as we are gathering together about seven 7-year-olds for the cops and robbers scenes.

It will, do doubt, be chaos. Hopefully, fun chaos.

Peace (in the movies),
Kevin

 

10 Comments
  1. Sounds like a wonderful movie. I can just imagine it. I bet all the grands will adore it. I can imagine the premere party with actors ans special guests. Each taking home a copy of their own Dvd. How can you top making a movie at seven?

  2. You have to keep this; it may be that he’s a famous director someday & broadcasters will show it the world over! The photo tells all, just great. I hope you’ll share some of it later.

  3. This is great! Sometimes it is difficult to go with the grand plans of a seven-year-old. It’s wonderful that you can support your son with this one.
    Terje

  4. So cool! My sons are 6 and 9 and they discovered the “Action Movie FX” app for the iTouch this weekend. Good lord, they were adding all types of crazy things to their movies. Hope your son enjoys the experience for the rest of the week. What a terrific memory.

  5. Oh, that sounds wonderful. I have a 6 year old and he tells amazing stories. You may have just inspired me. I just love the picture….it has that Where the Wild Things Are feel to it. I hope the chaos churned out an amazing film. You are a fabulous dad.

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