Kids project displayed at film festival

Andrew Joerger

Three kid crews from St. Margaret of Scotland got a bonus for their work on last year's school film projects. Their documentaries were shown in last month's St. Louis Filmmakers' Showcase at the Tivoli Theater.

Most Filmmakers' Showcase offerings are by older film producers.

But, Showcase organizers also are on the lookout for quality film efforts by young people.

The St. Margaret of Scotland Filmmakers' offering involved three short documentaries. Two films were by 8th grade teams and the other was by a crew of 6th graders.

Andrew Joerger was on the 8th grade team that decided to profile the Habitat For Humanity program. Habitat builds modest homes for low-income families. It also provides interest-free loans so the families can buy them.

Mark Perniciaro

The Habitat documentary was especially timely this summer. Local Habitat groups are doing a "blitz-build" of 20 new homes, enough to fill a full North St. Louis block.

Andrew admits he hadn't done anything with filmmaking before being assigned the "orbital studies" project at St. Margaret's. The films were to be about "advocacy" groups.

The other 8th grade crew created "The Salvation Army: Building an Army of Christ." It gave an overview of the history, mission and local operations of the Salvation Army.

The 6th graders created "Exploring," an overview of the local art scene in St. Louis.

(For names of the other 8th grade and the 6th grade teams, see below.)

Riley Montray

Andrew said their Habitat project sparked a personal interest in filmmaking. This summer, he attended the 3-week Mark Twain Summer Institute's film class at Wydown Middle School in Clayton.

Mark Perniciaro was another with little or no photography or filming experience. The 13-year-old said he's now looking at a career in "something in either photography or filmmaking." He said, "Cameras are fun."

The kids got some expert filmmaking help when the parent of two other St. Margaret kids volunteered at the school. Shaun McCanna is a co-founder of Flamingo Productions, Inc. That's a documentary filmmaker in St. Charles, Mo.

McCanna is a father of a 5th grader and a 1st grader at St. Margaret. He said, "I thought I was going to give one speech," But, when the principal finished talking with him, he'd volunteered for the 6-week film projects.

Fifteen-year-old Riley Montray gets credit for picking the Habitat For Humanity subject. She said, "My mom and I were talking about Habitat as a possible subject." Riley will be going to Notre Dame High School in the fall.

Cristi Schweitzer

Once the topic was picked, the kids divided up the tasks. That included research, script writing, looking of filming locales and for archived film. They also chose people to interview.

Of course, they had to familiarize themselves with operating a documentary camera.

Fourteen-year-old Cristi Schweitzer said she liked being behind the camera. She also said, "It's easier working in a group." Cristi also will go to Notre Dame in the fall.

The fifth member of the Habitat team was Maggie Schneider.

Then came the job of putting all the pieces together, including "voice-overs" and musical background. The music picked was from the TV series, "Smallville."

Their documentary included interviews with two Habitat volunteers who help organize the "builds." Generally a number of churches, businesses or organizations get together to finance a home and then provide volunteers to do the actual construction.

Joerger said, "It was cool to find out about Habitat."

Their research started with an internet search. However, he said the team had to be specific about what information it wanted. Putting only the word "Habitat" into a Google search led to thousands of "hits," he said.

Riley Montray said the problem wasn't too little information, but rather too much. Habitat is a world-wide organization and has been in business for many years.

With McCanna, the kids got a good lesson in filming "advocacy" documentaries.

Flamingo Films was founded in 2000 by McCanna and Lee Ann Nelson. Its emphasis is on human rights, democracy and cultural education issues. It's first two films have been about the struggle for democracy in Peru and have been shown on PBS stations.

 

Members of other two St. Margaret film teams

The members of the other two documentary film teams from St. Margaret of Scotland School were:

8th Grade: For "The Salvation Army: Building an Army of Christ"
Emily Cullmann, Amanda Folk, James Larsen, Michael Rauschenbach, Kristen Wurm

6th Grade: For "Exploring"
Genevieve Buthod, Chelsea Duffe, Alexander Haines, Tyler Ituen, Daniel Jones, Grace McMillen, Andrew Petty, Emma Silver, Alexandre Todorov, Hillary Trimble, Prentiss Turner, Stephen White, Laura Wilson.