Slammed

The kids took part in another video film festival, and it sort of fell into their laps. CATV sponsors a 48 hour film competition, or "Slam," where they invite anyone who is interested to make a video in 48 hours. They have done it for a few years and the kids never expressed interest because it seems to attract a pretty eclectic crowd. They have adult and high school teams that compete, and I think it's pretty hardcore.

When it came around this year, I asked them if they were interested and they said no thank you, but a friend of theirs was interested and asked if they would be on his team. They figured why not? They had nothing to lose. So they went for it, and I think they ended up having fun with it. The ran what is called a floating slam, which meant that within a two week period they could start their projects. They had to call in to get some relevant information that had to be in their film, then they had 48 hours to film it, edit it, and submit it.

Before all this happened, however, there was a meeting at CATV where all the groups registered and obtained their themes. They employed some crazy method where the groups received their themes but then they could choose to take a previous theme if they liked it better. A&N got the theme of "horror," but another group wanted it and took it. A&N ended up with "family," which they weren't so thrilled with. When they tried to see if someone else wanted it, there were no takers. It was a bit of a bummer, but on the way home the kids spun a positive light on it, which for the record, they are very good at.

When they got home and brainstormed about their film, things started to take shape and I think they were excited about it. They came up with a script and worked out some scenes, and then their buddy ES came over to work the camera. It was a fun day, and it was nice that ES could be involved because she's their buddy and she good at working the camera. I was craft service, feeding the kids lunch and making snacks, not to mention transporting them wherever they need to be.

After all the filming, they did the editing and A basically said it was done. She spent the entire day at the studio editing while N and I did other things. It's basically a one-person job, and she's pretty competent at it. At some point in the afternoon she decided it was done, and she turned it in ahead of schedule. How's that for confidence? It actually made sense because she couldn't edit at home, so why not turn it in and be done with it.

I think they had fun with this because there was little in the way of stress, and they were organized to the point where everything went smoothly. Don't you love when that happens?

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Grantmasters for the pic.