Filmmakers

Today I had the joy of making a Lego movie with a first grader. Most children would hate coming in for recess, but when I asked the student if he would be willing to come inside to make a Lego movie with me, his eyes lit up. He showed me where the Legos were in his classroom, and we got to work right away. I just pulled random pieces, tanks, and action figures out of the boxes while he looked for specifics: Lego people he had created before, pieces to make an army plane, and a Lego boat he had made previously. He preferred making his own Lego characters made from about four small pieces to using the premade Lego people. He gathered up the parts for the scenes he was planning on creating, his characters, and the setting before we moved to another location to film (where it would be quieter for us).

We set the scene how he wanted to and adjusted the characters and machines some. When he was ready, I began to shoot. I was intrigued by his desire to create a silent film. I asked him if he wanted to characters to say anything or talk to one another and he said no. He was content with the sound the tank and boat made as the crashed together and the visual effect of the bad guy flipping over when the good army guys hit him. He also chose to not name the characters because, “I didn’t want to.” The bad guy, although hit several times, recovered but eventually chose to go hide behind the army base. He ended up getting “stuck” instead which concluded the film as the Lego army men traveled back to the base, happy with their success at defeating the bad guy.

I later added sound effects and edited the film. Seeing the finished product felt great. Knowing, though, how much cooperation, discussion, critical thinking, and creativity would go into this sort of project when done by a group of elementary students made me love the idea even more. Bringing media to students and helping them advance in the things they already love so much is going to push the limits of technology. As students want to accomplish tasks where technology limits them, they will begin developing their own ideas for what technology should do. Students will learn to communicate their ideas verbally and will learn to listen attentively to others as they develop their films. Working one-on-one with a student showed me his personal interests: Legos, action, army, good versus bad, and no dialogue or character names. If I were to place him with other students, how might his boundaries and obvious skill with Legos be pushed to new boundaries? How would he push the skills of others? Implementing filmmaking in the classroom will only begin to show me how.