Media Art: Children's Films

Our next film project is creating a short children's film for the "Young Filmmaker" category of the Chicago International Children's Film Festival.  The films should follow the criteria bulleted below and the film will be due in class in May 8 (the festival entry deadline is May 31st). 

The action of the film should be child-driven.

The stories should be culturally authentic, timely, and of universal appeal.

Films submitted to CICFF should be made for, rather than about, children.

Film content should be creative, highly original, and demonstrate artistic and technical mastery.

Content should speak positively to children of diverse backgrounds and cultures & should provide strong role models for both boys and girls.

We'll discuss the details in class and look at some examples but below is a great example of short PSA produced and created by Smithtown East's own Rich Vernillo a few years ago.  He created this impressive short about bullying in high school and it went on to gain a huge number of views and acknowledgement.