BRING THE T TAURI MOVIE
CAMP TO YOUR TOWN~
Ozark
Foothills FilmFest Youth Division Overview
“T Tauri” is the astronomer’s name for a star at the
dawn of its birth. Since its creation in 2005, the T
Tauri Film Festival and Movie Camp, the youth division
of Ozark Foothills FilmFest, Inc., has worked to develop
opportunities for young filmmakers and aspiring
filmmakers in the region and across the state, the “new
stars” of the filmmaking universe. The young filmmaker
competition, the centerpiece of the annual T Tauri Film
Festival, attracts over a hundred entries from
filmmakers age 18 and under. In 2009 the competition
received 145 entries from 23 states and Great Britain.
Teens from the Lyon College APPLE Upward Bound program
serve as peer judges for the competition.
In addition to the competition and public screenings of
a significant number of the entries, the two-week T
Tauri Movie Camp is comprised of filmmaking workshops
that include Camcorder Fundamentals, Community
Documentary, Script to Screen (narrative filmmaking),
and Squish and Squash (hand-drawn animation). The
success of the summer workshops paved the way in 2007
for our first year-long youth training initiative, a
modified version of the movie camp Community Documentary
workshop, for students in the Lyon College APPLE
program. In 2008, the T Tauri Galaxy (www.ttauri.org/galaxy),
an online teen filmmaker community/learning lab, was
added as a way of providing additional resources and
opportunities for the state's growing number of young
filmmakers. In 2009 we became a founding partner (along
with Arkansas 4-H) of the federal program “Operation
Military Kids,” offering Community Documentary and
Public Service Announcement workshops at their summer
camp.
Residencies
and Curriculum Development Projects
The T Tauri initiative and its various components have
made a major contribution to the development of youth
media production in the state. T Tauri workshops have
been tested and refined over a five-year period. Faculty
members are talented and experienced professionals, all
of whom are members of the Arkansas Arts Council's Arts
in Education artist roster. The Community Documentary
and Public Service Announcements workshops combine
instruction in the basics of digital filmmaking with a
collaborative approach to creating work that addresses
community issues. Workshops can be tailored to meet the
needs of individual sponsoring organizations. We can
provide all of the equipment necessary or we can work
with equipment the students are already familiar with.
No previous film or video experience is required. The
level of instruction provided can be adjusted based upon
student experience and grade level. Student groups
research, plan, write, and create their own videos with
the assistance of one or more filmmaker/instructors.
Instruction in storyboarding, camera operation, sound
recording, and editing are interwoven into the process.
Instruction is reinforced by the T Tauri Galaxy (www.ttauri.org/galaxy),
our online community and “film school” for teens.
Students in all T Tauri workshops receive DVD copies of
the films they produce.
Ozark Foothills FilmFest, Inc. is also available to work
with schools and non-profit youth organizations to
develop their own filmmaking courses and programs and to
design film components within existing courses.
As a member of the Arkansas Arts Council's Arts in
Education Artist Roster, Ozark Foothills FilmFest youth
training programs are eligible for funding from the
Council. On-site filmmaking workshops at your school or
organization are eligible for funding through the
Council's
After
School/Summer Residency Grant Program and In-School
Residency Program, as well as the
AIE
Mini Grant Program. Filmmaking instruction
curriculum development projects are eligible for funding
through the Council's
Arts
Curriculum Project Grant Program.
To discuss a residency or curriculum development
project, contact Bob Pest at 870-251-1189 or
ozarkfilm@wildblue.net.
