Show Me A Movie, Part III

Kids make movie about Character Council

Eleven-year-old Clayton Newburry's experience on his school's Character Council provided the idea for an original movie that won a first prize in the 2007 Show Me A Movie competition.

Clayton teamed with 5th grade classmates, 10-year-old Miles Thies and 11-year-old Adam Sindecuse-Hayden, to film "Character Council." The film finished first in the Show Me Your Community category for elementary school students.

Clayton Newburry

The contest was sponsored by the Greater St. Louis Cooperating School Districts.

The Central Elementary team drew up a list of 10 possible ideas for their movie. They then made a unanimous choice of the Character Council idea.

At the St. Charles County school, outstanding 4th, 5th and 6th grade students are picked as council members. They provide services around the school, such as running the recycling program, raising the flag daily and serving as hosts to students who come in at mid-term.

Adam Sindecuse-Hayden

Adam said each member would write a section of the movie script and then the others would do the copy-editing. When it came to acting, each kid played the part of a council member.

In some scenes, the actor would give the explanation by talking to the camera. But, in others, the actor would show the activity and another team member did a voiceover that explained what was happening.

Adam said, "I liked the acting and the clip editing the best." Miles said he liked the writing and "working with the computer." Clayton said he liked the film editing.

Miles Thies

Their movie was just short of 2 minutes long and had 10 different scenes.

As part of the research for the movie, they conducted interviews with two Central Elementary teachers who supervised the Character Council.

The boys said there were six kids in their gifted class that participated in the movie-making contest. Ms. Becky Wegener was their teacher and the boys and girls divided into two three-member teams to enter the contest.

The boys all had previous movie-making experience before the Show Me competition.

Adam said he made an earlier movie on the subject, "Why does your body continue to work when you're sleeping?" He said, "The medulla in your brain continues to regulate the body even when you're asleep."

Miles said his earlier movie sought to answer the question, "Why is the sky blue?"

Clayton said his movie sought to answer the question, "Why can't you smell your own breath?" But, asked if the movie provided an answer, he said, "No."

Adam said the team didn't get any outside help in making their Show Me movie. He said they used IMovie editing software and used "garageband" archives for the background music. Both are Apple Computer programs.

Miles said they also used scenes from a "self-control" movie the school had produced. One of the central themes of the Character Council was to teach the kids how to act responsibly in dealing with other people.

He said they used only about 10 seconds of the "self-control" movie but had to strip out the special effects and background music from that previous film. Then, they added their own music and effects.

He said eliminating old sounds and adding new for that one clip was the toughest part of the movie-making process. "And we only used a few seconds of it in our movie," he said.

Miles said they used a variety of special effects to mark the transitions from one scene to another. "We did fade-ins, fade-outs and used whirlpool effects. We also used one special effect where we pushed one scene off while another came on," he said.

In all, they had about 15 minutes of filmed material that had to be condensed into just 2 minutes for their final entry.

The three boys have worked as a team on other special projects. One called for them to design and build a bridge with toothpicks and glue. In that project, Miles designed the bridge, Clayton built it and Clayton was the project accountant.

They won "strongest bridge" in the school competition.

All the kids listed math as their favorite subject in school. Their career choices reflect that interest in numbers.

Adam wants to be an investment banker while Miles hopes to become an architect.

Clayton said, "I'd like to be an engineer of some type. I'd like to work in electronics and with airplanes."