Playshop: An Adventure With a Princess

When I found out that I would be creating a film for class, I panicked. I was clueless. I didn't know the first thing about filmmaking, and I had no idea where to start. As I started to calm down, I saw in my syllabus that we would also have to share these films in class. Yikes!

Since the semester was coming to an end, I found myself having less and less time to work on a film with my case study student, *Ryca*. I decided that I would ask my student to tell me what kind of movie he would've wanted to create if we would've had the time. I shared with him that he could create a story, choose/describe characters, and pick a setting, and I would put all of the pieces together and create the movie at home. He shared with me that he wanted an adventure, but not just any adventure. He wanted an adventure with a princess, prince, king, guards, and evil monsters. He wanted there to be a castle for the princess, king, and guards and a cave for the evil monster. He also wanted the prince to come from far away to marry the princess. My smile grew bigger and bigger as I was taking mental notes of his requests. It was really interesting to see how quickly Ryca came up with a story. This reminded me that children have minds full of imagination and creativity, and are just waiting for the right opportunities to share it all with anyone and everyone. As I was waiting for Ryca to fill in the details of the story, he just paused and stared at me. Smiling, he said, "Why don't you make the story?" I gave you the characters and places where they live, so it's your turn now! Make a story!". His final request took my by surprise. It was a really nice reminder that kids think others can be creative as well, and that at times kids like to share with others -whether it's toys, ideas, stories, etc... I was excited to start on this project at home, but first I needed to borrow some toys from my wonderful friend *Nicole*.    :)

In order to create a film, I needed some extra hands. I recruited a friend to help me with the film clips and had him "be" the characters by manipulating the toys. We did take after take after take, and I realized that filmmaking is incredibly difficult. It takes an endless amount of patience to make an entire film come together. We had to create the different voices for the characters, practice each scene before recording, figure out which angles the characters would enter and exit from, and countless other details. It was quite a frustrating experience. Halfway through creating the film, I realized that kids probably don't spend time with details such as these. They probably just have fun bringing these characters to life and just playing with them. I decided to forget about those details and just tried to enjoy playing with toys with my friend. I found just having fun to be a much more fulfilling experience and it turned out to be a hilarious film in the end!

I knew that I would come to class with Ryca's vision of an adventure and my story in pieces, ready to be edited and shared in class. I wasn't sure what to expect for the final version, but I was excited to add some sound effects and music to make the film more interesting.

Although I did not have enough time to create and edit this film with Ryca at school, I think these types of projects are excellent ways to play and tell stories. If I had fun making this film at home, who knows how much fun Ryca would have had making it at school? Projects like these are really engaging for children and give children the open space they need to let their imagination flow.