Movie making used to be restricted to professionals with the necessary resources but now most people have a smart phone or tablet, and local media teacher Peter Harris is leveraging that capability into mobile movie making.
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Peter is passionate about helping people of all ages to better use available technology to communicate, culminating in a Mobile Movie Festival at the Tenterfield Cinema in October.
To that end the former teacher has been offering free workshops to local primary schools to help students express their ideas through videos. “It’s a digital world,” Peter said.
“It’s important for young people particularly in rural areas to have the opportunity to be up to speed.” And the kids are receptive, with movie concepts like transition, text, sound, movement and animation that Peter used to teach to Year 11 students now being readily absorbed by students at the Year 4 level.
“It’s an extremely powerful medium,” he said.
“These components that used to be separate forms of communication can now be integrated.
“Young people are learning to communicate a lot with digital technology.
“I’d like to see them take a step up from the dross of much of what’s on the internet and become a bit more discerning and have fun telling stories this way.
“It’s a great life skill.” During his school workshops Peter breaks down storytelling into its elements, tutoring the students on how to document their own stories.
He said it interleaves well with the current emphasis in the primary school syllabus on Australian history, and Tenterfield is a rich source of material.
The primary school section of the mobile movie festival is themed ‘Things are different now’, and this could be related to transport, architecture, agriculture, mining or any other concept.
“They’re all part of the rich history of this district,” Peter said. Local students and residents alike are also fortunate in having an accessible cinema in town to support a mobile movie festival. “It’s rare to have a mobile movie festival on a big screen, and it’s rare to have a big screen with access,” Peter said. “It’s a very rare opportunity.”
Still technological differences between smart phone videos and big screen projection systems mean Peter will have a few late nights translating one format to another, but thinks the effort will be well worth it.
The festival runs at the Tenterfield Cinema over two weekends: October 15/16 and October 22/23. There will be five sections: primary students, secondary students and open junior and open senior as well as a special Secret Gully Nature Puppetry section.
Submissions are to be 3-5 minutes in length and shot and edited entirely on a smart phone. For more information go to mobilemoviefestival.com.
