For its 14th summer, local nonprofit Aurora Picture Show will host camps where kids step behind the camera as filmmakers — culminating with a red-carpet-style premiere, complete with paparazzi.

No prior filmmaking experience is needed for the camp, which is open to ages 7 to 15, and Aurora’s Camilo Gonzalez says most campers return for subsequent summers once they’ve experimented with the medium.

一些短片已经参加了评审电影节。

Professional artists and animators teach each weekly session, beginning with basic technical skills. Campers tour the editing areas and animation stations and try out equipment, including lighting and tripods.

They work in teams to pitch their ideas before getting to work on their three- to five-minute films.

From silly and fun to abstract or political, Gonzalez says film topics come from campers’ own life experiences. “We are showing them what their voice is and how important their stories are,” he says.

“Getting their ideas out of their heads, onto paper and onto a moving image is a really good tool for them to have as a kid in this multisensory world that we live in,” he adds.

One style kids can employ in their filmmaking is stop-motion animation. Digital animation, which is more advanced, is not taught at the camp.

Using objects available in the studio or that they bring from home, kids move items in front of the camera, take pictures, then move the object again to tell a story.

They’ll learn frame rate, composition and other fundamentals.

在后期制作中,孩子们使用拼接技术ll the images together to create the illusion of movement.

Stop-motion films might feature Claymation, collage elements or objects such as Legos or fruit.

冈萨雷斯说：“您确实可以将任何对象带入栩栩如生。”“这主要是要让他们的创造力带上方向盘。”

Gonzalez recalls one short in which a strawberry with a face began to eat other strawberries.

In another, “Godzilla’s Day Off,” filmmakers featured a stuffed animal and showed how the monster might relax, depicting him drinking coffee and other everyday acts.

Kids use the same iPads, DSLR cameras, tripods and Go Pros to make shadow puppetry films.

Relying on white bed sheets, overhead projectors and other types of lighting, they’ll cast shadows using their bodies, objects or cut-outs, then learn how to film the movements smoothly.

Other campers might make use of a green screen for their movies, learning how to key tone the background and gaining skills to make a subject invisible, to make objects float or to overlay screens so that a character appears to be talking to a clone of himself.

最后，孩子们选择音乐来增强他们的故事。

For a film about Pac-Man coming to life, kids overlaid a soundtrack reminiscent of the original retro game.

For the film “Nectar,” a team used stop-motion animation to show a procession of origami butterflies migrating. Set to a piano score, the film was “gorgeous, kind of ethereal,” Gonzalez says.

Throughout the week, campers also view and critique full-length movies.

冈萨雷斯说：“电影（连接我们）有些神奇。”“我们所有人都想做一些故事。”

在过去的几年中，露营者的短片被选为芝加哥国际儿童电影节和其他评审表演。

但是，冈萨雷斯说，每年夏天的亮点是休斯敦美术博物馆的八月电影首映，该电影结束了营地任期。

As campers enter the event with their parents and guests, an Aurora team member using flash photography acts as the “paparazzi.” Guests receive printed invitations and each camp team has the chance to discuss their film in front of the audience.

It’s an “empowering experience that happens when they get to share their film with the world,” Gonzalez says. “The theater feels full of energy. It’s kind of a drum-roll moment.”

Campers are always eager to see the premieres of their peers’ films, he says. Each child receives a diploma and takes a bow.

冈萨雷斯笑着说：“他们是电影导演，很有名……有些父母在要求他们的签名。”

There are multiple ovations before the night is over.

他说：“他们的微笑和自负几乎没有穿过门。”“真的很漂亮。”

Allison Bagley is a Houston-based writer.