Westport
Summer 2025
Special FX Filmmaking
Learn filmmaking by doing. For the up-and-coming filmmaker in the family. Learn key tools to tell your stories, along with awesome in-camera special effects! We cover cutting on action, teleportation, levitation, walking through walls, and more! Learn the art of shot choice, camera angles, believable dialogue, brisk plotting, and set design. Tell your story, one frame at a time. Filmmakers Ink instructors will help you collaborate with your filmmaking tribe to develop an idea for a film, then, write, produce, shoot, act, and direct a 5-7 minute movie using Special FX!
- For students ages 8-10 years old in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades.
- Dates: MON 7/14/2025 to FRI 7/18/2025, 9AM-12PM.
Stop Motion Animation
Animate your imagination! You create characters—using materials from LEGOs to Hot Wheels, action figures to stuffed animals, clay, found objects, even wood, stone, and metal—and our experienced filmmakers will help you get them moving. Learn the science of freeze frame filming and the art of shot choice, camera angles, believable dialogue, brisk plotting, and set design. Tell your story, one frame at a time.
- For students ages 8-10 years old in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades.
- Dates: MON 7/14/2025 to FRI 7/18/2025, 12:30PM-3:30PM.
Filmmaking Workshop
Learn the process of making good films, fast. Work with professional filmmakers and build the filmmaking instincts needed to direct, capture the right footage, act truthfully in scenes, and run a set. Professional filmmakers will help you experience the moviemaking process from script writing through pre-production and filming. Everyone will develop scripts, use professional filmmaking equipment, learn Acting and Directing techniques and work in each of the main crew positions, including Director, 1st AD (Assistant Director), DP (Director of Photography), Gaffer (lighting) and Sound, while making movies together.
- For students ages 11 years old and up in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.
- Dates: MON 7/14/2025 to FRI 7/18/2025, 9AM-3PM.
Acting Workshop
Step on the film set and get professional, on-the-job acting coaching. Early in the week you’ll perform professional acting exercises, based on the Meisner Technique, designed to help you sharpen your listening skills, and learn to live truthfully within your scenes. Later in the week you’ll get plenty of on-camera experience as you work improvisationally with a crew of filmmakers from the Filmmaking Workshop, as you act in the films being produced by the program.
- For students ages 11 years old and up in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.
- Dates: MON 7/14/2025 to FRI 7/18/2025, 9AM-3PM.