Video Club Kickoff

Cabrini Connections' new Video and Filmmakers Club held its first meeting last night with great attendance. 10 kids showed up for lessons in the basics of storytelling. Club Leader Michael Alexander, President of Conscious Planet Media, asked questions like "what is a story?" and "what makes a good storyteller?" Kids shared their favorite movies, television shows, and music videos and used them as examples of storytelling. "Tell me what that movie is about in 60 seconds," requested Michael.

The last question of the night was: "what story do we want to tell together?" This accelerated summer session will meet for six weeks. By its end we will have a 3-minute video completed. Right now it looks like we will make a documentary about the Video and Filmmakers Club (who we are, what we do) with a twist: it will be assigned a genre, such as horror or comedy. Thus it will serve a dual purpose. First, it will be promotional and used as a recruitment tool for the fall session; and, second, it will give our kids a chance to explore genre conventions. What are the characteristics, both in writing and on screen, of a horror film or a comedy?

The Video and Filmmakers Club is off to a promising start. As we continue to meet, I hope that you will follow our blog at http://cabrinifilms.blogspot.com/. The Art Club meets on Monday night, too, and they started a new project last night with several volunteers from Chicago Cares. They are already working toward next spring's Art and Video Festival, so get ready to be amazed!

We are very proud of our clubs here at Cabrini Connections, but they can't go on without the continued support of donors and volunteers. If you would like to make a donation to either club, or to our organization as a whole, please visit our web site. Thank you!