Campers make movies at Sarasota Film Camp

11-year-old Bryce Williams found himself in a unique predicament this summer — he didn't really have much to do. 

“I was bored,” Williams said. “I had no idea what to do because school was out and I had no camps.”

One of the Chicago resident’s favorite things to do — watch movies — wasn’t the same either, as movie theaters have stayed closed. His parents thought to do the next best thing, and helped Bryce Williams make his own movies with the help of instructors at the Sarasota Film Festival. 

Williams and countless other children have been hard at work at the Sarasota Film Festival’s virtual film camp, an eight-week initiative teaching students the fundamentals of putting together their own films. Sarasota Film Festival staff and volunteers teaching students the building blocks of making movies from technical tools like editing software and the more artistic importance of film angles and cinematography. Much of the camp is headed by Sarasota Film Festival Managing Director Paul Ratner and Director of Development and Events Petra Ratner, who host morning lessons before breaking the students off into groups to make their own films. 

“You see when someone has a real talent, you can see they can plan well and have a vision and know how to edit quickly,”  Petra Ratner said. “Others you have to wake up the creativity in them, which is also fine.”

The Sarasota Film Festival’s summer programs has had in-person summer camps with more than 60 children for the last few years. The decision to transition to a virtual program was made in May.  Paul Ratner said the new virtual approach actually resulted in greater student turnout, with several coming in from other states.

Each week has a genre or theme for student’s to learn. For one week’s “Spooky” theme, Paul showed students scenes from classic horror movies “Nosferatu” and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” to illustrate the filmmaking techniques to amplify tension and horror. He would also link the editing styles and imagery of those original movies to how they still influence more modern works like “Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas.”

“It’s fun,” Paul Ratner said. “We’re teaching kids how to think about certain films.”

Each camper would film their own segments from their homes, and would meet up to edit and intersplice the scenes into a cohesive narrative. At the end of each week, the student groups would show their work to the camp and talk about them over Zoom. 

Anna Hunek, a 10-year-old camper in Sarasota, wanted to learn filmmaking techniques she could use for her new Youtube channel. Since taking the camp, she says she’s made videos about game characters, stop-motion legos, a Star Wars parody and more. 

For her video during "Spooky Week", she and other campers made a video about a girl who’s two friends become ghosts and her efforts to save them. Hunek has the hero moment where she deflects a doll’s curse with a mirror and saves her friends, all while wearing a ninja costume. 

“It was my brother’s from two years ago,” Hunek said. “We had to rip it to get me out of it.”

One of Bryce’s favorite projects with his group was  a story about three friends who found cosmic gems giving them powers, with an FBI agent — who is actually a criminal — hot on their trail. Williams played the FBI agent and one of the friends, and the story ends with a cliffhanger where he is given a gem and new powers. Playing two characters was a thrill for the young filmmaker. 

“It was just a great, great, great experience,” Williams said. 

The summer camp programs are winding down as school starts, but Paul said there are plans to open film classes for adults.
For more information: http://sarasotafilmcamps.com/