Want to learn how to edit a movie or write a book?
The Barrhead Public Library is hosting two new camps, one focused on video editing and general movie-making, and another based on a popular program initiated by Google Inc. called Makercamp, in addition to the three community favourites from last year.
“These are the most camps we’ve run at one time,” Kyle Hughes said, adding the library tries to change it up with regards to the camps that are offered, but community favourites are favourites for a reason.
Returning for its second year and organized by summer student Scott Franchuk, the Young Writer’s Camp runs Aug. 2-4, is intended for ages 11-15 — a slight modification from last year’s 9-14 age range.
“We’re going to be doing an overview of various kinds of writing and we’re hoping to bring in professionals to speak again,” Franchuk said, adding last year’s speaker, Jay Watananiuk from Edmonton-based video game development company BioWare Games is one possibility, though he is also in discussion with an graphic novel illustrator as well.
“We’ll be covering everything from writing poetry to fiction, comic books and videogame scripting,” he added.
Franchuk, a film student at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus, is also helming a brand new video editing and movie-making camp designed for children aged 11-15.
“It will cover the entire movie-making process,” he said. “We’re going to start by putting the participants into small groups and help them foster ideas, write them and shoot them too. Editing will be done on the last day.”
Also new to the Library’s summer camp line-up, Makercamp, is a miniaturized version of the program initiated by Google and Make, a U.S-based company, and is designed for kids, too.
It is about exploring technologies and innovations in the world, Hughes said, adding it will be run every Monday in August starting on the 8th, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m, and is intended for those aged seven and up.
“Every week will be a different theme and we’ll be doing experiments and crafts to show off the casual side of those themes. I’m still hashing out the itinerary right now, but the themes are going to be space and technology, agriculture, 3D printing, and digital technology,” he added.
For the past couple of years, Hughes said, the library has run a Kodu Game Design workshop where participants get to discover the ins and outs of video game design.
He said this year will be different.
“We are changing it up, making it cooler for kids and using Minecraft’s education system to show the logic behind the programming,” he said.
The Minecraft and Scratch game design camp runs from Aug. 16-19, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Finally, the popular Spark Fine Arts Camp is returning once again and running from Aug. 9-12.“It’s basically a bunch of different workshops where kids will learn about different art forms, from acrylics and lino to maybe watercolour and others. We’ll have some local artists come in and teach their techniques,” summer program leader Hannah Raju said.
