A room in a downtown film production company is abuzz as class starts at Spy Hop Productions for a group of 7- to 18-year-olds.
The group is called from their computers where they have already started editing their weekly film project. After calling roll, their instructor, Jarrett Reich, outlines what the students must accomplish in order to finish the movie they are making on time.
The class is a part of the summer Continuing Education Youth Program sponsored by the U. Spy Hop Productions has teamed up with the U to create a series of summer classes for children and teenagers age 7 to 18 to get involved in multimedia production.
The class, entitled Intro to Video, gives students the opportunity to create an original movie from the basic story concept to the final editing touches. During the course, students learn how to film, edit and record audio for their film.
Spy Hop Executive Director and Co-Founder Rick Wray believes that although the technical skills are important, the most important skills that children can gain from the class is to become media literate.
Wray and his business partner Erik Dodd founded Spy Hop Productions in 1999 because they felt that children were getting too much exposure to the wrong kinds of digital mediums.
“A lot of kids today spend way too much time sitting in front of digital media,” Wray said. “We wanted to teach them how to use digital mediums to share their voice.”
He went on to say that today it is critical for kids to gain an understanding of how the media influences their lives and how to use digital media as a source of empowerment.
Wray added that a key part of the class is the socialization of the kids’ experience.
“The end product is important but we focus more on the process. We want them to become good storytellers,” Wray said.
This summer, the students of Reich’s class put together a humorous film titled “Ted PI.” The film is about a Ukrainian dad (Ted) and his daughter who wins the Miss Universe contest. After the contest they decide to return home to Ukraine but they must find a shed to store their things in.
The rest of the film is about their search for a decent shed.
The humorous nature of the film, while deviating significantly from the kind of serious, award-winning documentaries commonly associated with Spy Hop, was successful in getting many of the young students hooked on filmmaking.
“The experience of being able to do all the behind the scenes work is fun,” class member Chris Carpenter, 12, said. “This is the first time I’ve done it, and now I want to do it again.”