Filmmaking Summer Program for Grades 6-9
Why Take Filmmaking
At Interlochen, you'll develop the skills needed to effectively express yourself as an aspiring filmmaker. This program is designed for young artists looking to explore your creativity while collaborating with peers to bring your imaginations to life on the screen.
What You'll Learn
Our aspiring young filmmakers will spend their time at Interlochen immersed in the world of cinema. You'll receive daily instruction and opportunities to explore the medium—including creating a movie from start to finish—with our team of experienced filmmaking faculty.
Coursework will include:
- Production Workshop offers hands-on practical production techniques, including cameras, sound, securing locations, shot design, and working with actors
- Critical Studies Hour includes reviewing classic films, learning to think critically about what makes a film work, and broadening students' cinematic horizons
- Visual Writing includes learning the art of the story and putting your imagination on the page, by writing several short scripts and moving one into production
Each session concludes with a screening of your work.
Program Highlights
Film Screening
At the end of each session, there is a screening of student work inside our DeRoy Center for Film Studies. Oh, and there is free popcorn, too.
DeRoy Center for Film Studies
Film & New Media courses are held inside of the DeRoy Center for Film Studies, the 26,000 square-foot home of Interlochen's Film & New Media Division. The facility touts four editing suites, a soundstage, a 180-seat 2K HD projection space—it's the same projection you'll find at your local cinema (films are seen and heard the way the director intended)—and classrooms are equipped with cutting-edge technology.
Guest Artists
Recent guest artists to the Film & New Media Department during Interlochen Arts Camp include:
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Robert Eggers, film director, screenwriter, and production designer known for The Witch and The Lighthouse.
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Peter Gould, television writer, director, and producer known for Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
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Janet Leahy, an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer known for Mad Men.
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Michael Moore, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker.
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Gordon Radley, former president of George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic.
I am having so much fun! This place is amazing. We have fun classes like filmmaking, acting, and singing. My favorite class is filmmaking. In the first week, we all wrote a two-page screenplay. In the second week, we shot each other's screenplays. We all had the chance to be director, assistant director, director of photography, production designer, and actors. It was so fun!
Eric, Filmmaking
Visual Storytelling
Hear from other Intermediate Filmmaking students on why filmmaking is important to them.
