Young filmmakers show off short film at university summer camp

By Mariah Wilson, July 27 2018 —

During the summer, the University of Calgary hosts several camps on its main campus for local youth to explore their interests, such as photography, cycling and theatre. On Friday, July 20, eight youth aged 10–14 presented Above Suspicion, a film they wrote, directed and starred in over the course of two weeks through the Director’s Cut Pro camp.

The film is described as “a tale of mystery and suspense.” The short was well-received by audience members and the eight members of the team said they were able to learn a lot from the experience.

Acoy Campbell, one of the filmmakers and a participant in this camp, enjoys creating his own YouTube videos and wanted to gain new skills at the camp mostly “to not make people click away from your video within the first five seconds.”

“Our program is DC Pro, in which some of the older kids come and get to spend two weeks making pretty much every aspect of a movie, from writing the story all the way to making the music and editing it themselves,” says Jonathan Malloy, one of the camp leaders and a film and video production student at SAIT.

Malloy says that his favourite part of the production was coming up with the idea for the movies.

“All of the kids got together and we all kind of picked out elements from three different ideas and forged them into one movie,” he says.

The young filmmakers created a promotional website for Above Suspicion, which can be accessed here.