Straight to video

Have a budding Scorsese on your hands? The second-annual video camp at Spokane’s Discovery School might be just the thing to launch your little film-fanatic on his or her way to stardom.

The camp, one of many arts-oriented programs offered around the area this summer, teaches kids all about setting up shots, operating equipment and editing their work.

Best of all, filming done at the camp will be put to good use: Making one-minute videos of Spokane’s public art for the city’s Arts Commission. The videos will be shown on the commission’s Web site and will also be used for insurance purposes, says Lorna Kropp, the library-technology teacher at Discovery School.

“We have a real client,” Kropp says.

And it’s not just kids who will learn about film-making at the camp.

The program, which is sponsored by the Discovery School and the Washington Library Media Association, begins each morning with a session for teachers and librarians. In the afternoon, those same people will teach the children what they have learned.

Teaching the new technology to others is the best way to learn it yourself, Kropp says.

Campers are broken up into teams for the two-day shoot. Each group has a director, photographer, talent director and grip, she says.

After filming art near Riverfront Park and City Hall, the groups spend the last two days of camp editing what they shot.

The video camp, which is held in August, is geared toward fourth- through eighth-graders.

But it was such a hit last year among the adults, that the school might add a session just for parents, Kropp says.

For more information on video camp, log on to www.discovery-school.org/ html/videocamp.html.