Monday, April 9, 2007

Rather than passively viewing TV programming, kids can make their own TV shows right on their kitchen tables.

I've taught, supervised, sheparded, or assisted over 2000 people in the art of making a short animated films. Most of these people are kids ages 8-12. We've created over 200 films together the past few years. This has always been a side job for me. But it is starting to grow into something much more.
Youtube got everybody's attention last year when Google paid over 1.5 Billion with a B dollars for essentially the Napster of video, with a lot of home movies thrown in to boot.
Short form video is now a staple of many computer endabled households. Over 100,000,000 million downloads per month from Youtube alone have given many the idea of making their own movies. Youtube allows you to subscribe to content providers you enjoy. If a twelve year-old from Hoboken is making a three minute cooking show each week, you can subscribe and get the update notice via email each time a new episode appears. Eight and ten year olds are making movies from bestselling books. Check out www.looseline.com for an example of how far some kids have come in the world of instant self made media.
To be watching and facilitating this whole new world of creative media generation is my privledge and also the purpose of this blog.
We live in an age where kids can become their own programming directors. Kids can develop their own "TV" channels with dedicated followings. What better alternative to passively "consuming" highly packaged TV Programming than to sit down and create your own.
It is my mission to give parents and kids this vision. I created my first movie at age 10 with mom and dad's super 8mm video camera. Once finished I had nobody to show but the kids in the movie and my parents. Where I the same 10 year old today, the entire computer enabled globe is my audience.
My goal with this blog is to feature as many interesting and innovative ways kids are doing just that.

Enjoy!