A scene from "Three Wishes" by Montessori E2 students Kasey, Greta, Alaina, and Adrienne. Green screen is just one technique students learned to make their films.

In recent months, two area schools  – Chippewa Valley Montessori Charter School (CVMCS), part of the Eau Claire Area School District, and Oaklawn Elementary School in Menomonie – have been bitten by the filmmaking bug. Students at both schools have been producing creative short films and showcasing them at their very own film festivals.

This entire filmmaking movement started in the spring of 2015 with a sketch of a unicorn with a candy corn horn created by Eva, a third-grader at the Montessori school. As it turned out, Eva the Artist also had an interest in stop motion animation – and a teacher who supported such endeavors. She brought her drawing to school, teamed up with her friend Julia, and spent time over the next few weeks experimenting with stop motion apps on a school iPad. With support from their teacher, the girls had given life to Eva’s drawing and produced a 37-second, stop motion film titled “Unicandycorn.”

“Our main goal is to showcase great creative fiction writing through the filmmaking process. But students have also gained life skills as they’ve prepared for each festival.” – Jeremy Harrison, teacher and organizer of the Montessori Film Festival

Jeremy Harrison, a first- to third-grade educator at the school and teacher to Eva and Julia, was struck by the interest, collaboration, and follow-through the girls showed in producing Unicandycorn, and, most importantly, the inherent lessons they learned about a solid story being central to a film’s success. Harrison saw immense potential for other students to practice and stretch their creative writing skills while exploring current technology and learning about the filmmaking process. Before long, Unicandycorn snowballed into the school’s first-ever film festival.

Harrison pulled together a team of Montessori teachers, staff, and parents, and in less than five weeks this group helped support 77 student filmmakers (in first through eight grades) as they created 36 short films in a range of styles: from stop motion to live action (some with green screen) to animation. The group also assembled a jury of 17 community members tasked with viewing the films and selecting their favorites. The top films were then featured at the first CVMCS Film Festival, an event designed to celebrate all the student filmmakers and their achievements.

Winning film entry "The Day My Toilet Came Alive" was made by Montessori E1 students Julianna and William. Live action, stop motion, and animation techniques were all used by the young filmmakers.

In December 2015, Harrison, his colleague Jen Peck, and five outstanding student writers and filmmakers (Eva, Flint, Julian, Maddy, and Robert) shared their film production experiences through a presentation at the TIES 2015 Education Technology Conference in Minneapolis. Their hope was to inspire other educators to start film festivals at their own schools.

In their audience sat Matt Wigdahl, a fifth-grade teacher at Oaklawn Elementary School in Menomonie. “They were amazing,” he said. “I thought it was SO COOL that the teachers at (CVMCS) would bring their students to a professional conference to tell their own story.

“So Zac Rubenzer, Kristin Haworth, and I, fifth grade team at Oaklawn, developed a filmmaking process centered on student learning about Revolutionary War-era American history,” he continued. “We filmed an example video ourselves, and partnered with local screenwriter Charis Collins, who taught our students the process of developing a screenplay.”

A scene from "Crossing the Delaware" by Oaklawn Elementary Students in Menomonie, part of the school's Founding Folks Film Festival.

And on an evening last May, the Founding Folks Film Festival was born. Oaklawn families were invited to the school to view 30 short films and attend sessions in which small groups of students presented on their filmmaking processes. A small jury – comprised of the district technology director, principal, art teacher, and local theater manager – selected winners in different categories, and distributed 3D-printed medals.

By this time, back at the Montessori school,  Harrison and his team were helping students take their second film festival to a new level. Eighty-seven students produced 46 films, and the 2016 festival was held at Micon Cinemas in Chippewa Falls, allowing for the students to see their work on the big screen.

“Our main goal is to showcase great creative fiction writing through the filmmaking process,” Harrison said.  “But students have also gained life skills as they’ve prepared for each festival.”

Eva’s mom, Shannon, agrees. “I’ve been thrilled with the knowledge Eva has gained through filmmaking,” she said. “Not only has she developed an understanding of various technologies available to filmmakers, but she has a new respect for collaboration and the importance of having a solid story at the heart of a film.”