Teenagers who love films usually want to make one, and the phone in their pocket can already shoot and edit better than most cameras could twenty years ago. What they lack is not equipment. It is someone to show them how a story is built, how a scene is directed, and how a group of people makes one thing together. That is what a good film course for young people supplies.
What a good program for young people includes
The whole craft, not one corner of it. Writing, directing, acting, camera and editing are one process. A program that only teaches editing software, or only runs acting games, leaves a young person with a piece of the puzzle and no picture. Look for one in which they do every part, even briefly.
A finished film at the end. The single most useful thing a teenager can take home is a short film they made, that they can show their family and their friends. It proves to them that they can finish something. Ask whether the program ends with a screening.
Small groups. A film crew is a handful of people. A class of fifty cannot make a film, it can only watch one being made.
Working filmmakers in the room. Young people know the difference between someone who has done it and someone who has read about it.
Safe, supervised, and honest about it. You should be told where the sessions are, who is supervising, what the hours are, and how the children get in and out. A program that cannot answer those questions plainly is not ready for your child.
The right age
Ten to sixteen is the window in which film training does the most good. Younger than that, attention does not stretch across a five day project. Older, and the person is choosing a career rather than exploring one, and a different kind of program applies.
Blu Light's programs for young people
Blu Light Film and TV Academy in Lagos runs two programs for children aged 10 to 16.
- The Young Kingdom Creators Film and TV Skills Training teaches the crafts across a short course.
- The Young Creators Summer Camp is five days in the school holidays in Victoria Island, Lagos. Over the five days each child writes a story, directs it, acts in it, films it and edits it, then watches it on a screen with the others.
Both are led by Michelle Bello, a filmmaker with more than eighteen years in the industry, with a team of working professionals alongside her. The academy trains Christian creatives, so the programs are built around confidence, collaboration and using a talent well, not only the technical skill.
Questions to ask before you pay
- Will my child make a complete short film, and will I get to see it?
- How many children are in the group, and how many adults?
- Who teaches, and what have they made?
- What exactly happens each day?
- What does the fee include, and what does my child need to bring?
The summer camp page has the dates, venue and fee for the next camp, and the contact page is the quickest way to ask anything the page does not answer.