Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Ep 82: 14th Annual Canyons Film Festival: Nurturing the Next Generation of Story Tellers
Virtually every U.S. household has a streaming device, and Americans spend more than three hours a day streaming digital media, or 21 hours a week. Add to that the $6.5 billion spent in 2022 on movie tickets and it's easy to understand why the film industry is such a big draw for those looking to make a career out of movie making.
In Canyons School District, we work to provide students with opportunities to gain practical experiences in the fields they're interested in, which is the impetus behind the District’s 14-year-old film festival. On the latest episode of the Connect Canyons podcast, we learn about how the film festival got its start and where it is now more than a decade later.
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyons School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us.
Speaker 2:According to Forbes, 99% of US households have one or more streaming devices. Americans spend a little over three hours a day streaming digital media. That amounts to more than 21 hours a week. Add that to Americans spending more than $6.5 billion on movie tickets in 2022. It's easy to understand why the film industry has such a big draw for those looking to make a career out of moviemaking. Welcome to Connect Canyons. I'm your host, stephanie Christensen. Here at Canyons School District, we work to provide our students with opportunities to gain practical experiences in the fields they're interested in and ways to challenge themselves. That's why, for 14 years, canyons has held an annual film festival. I'm joined today by Katie Blunt, one of the founding members of the Canyons Film Festival, and Justin Anderson, broadcasting specialist and director of CSDTV. Thank you both for joining us.
Speaker 3:It's good to be here. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:So, Katie, how did the film festival come into existence?
Speaker 4:It all started with Kelly Dumont. Kelly was involved in a film festival in Jordan School District and so when Canyons was formed and Kelly was a team lead in the ed tech department, he wanted that to be one of the things that we continued and maybe even enhanced and, as is done in Canyons, make our own. And so it started. Actually, year one, Kelly got it going with Wade Harmon, who was an ed tech specialist at the time, and it was small and it was cute and they had I don't know 10-ish entries and they had a little award ceremony and viewing ceremony at one of the old middle schools that now has been rebuilt. And that was the beginning. And then, a couple years in, we thought, hmm, maybe we could do a little more with this.
Speaker 4:I remember going to the ISTE conference International Society for Technology and Education and there was a presentation about a film festival that they were doing in California and I felt like you know, in the film industry in California it's go big or go home, and that's what they were doing. They were really making it just a big celebration of student achievement and student creativity. And so Camille Cole was actually assigned then to be in charge of the festival, and then, I believe just a year later, I was put in charge and Camille became my assistant, and then it just grew from there. That's when it really started becoming a fun event, in addition to all of the you know, academic and creative purposes for the festival.
Speaker 2:So, justin, you're currently in charge of the film festival. What kind of numbers are we seeing as far? She said in the beginning it was about 10 students Last year. How many entries did we have?
Speaker 3:So one of the cool things about the film festival and I think it comes back to it's starting with an educational focus, for with our coaches who are involved, with our teachers, and it's because it's been consistent over the years. Our teachers have really taken it and incorporated it into their curriculum. We have so many teachers now who reach out to me and say, ok, my class is doing this activity. We all want to submit a film to the film festival and that's really helped us a lot. So we average around 400 different entries and a lot of those are group entries with students, so multiple students on each entry. So we're upwards of 600, 700 students involved with the film festival, from kindergarten all the way up to our seniors, involved with the film festival, from kindergarten all the way up to our seniors. So it's super fun to see all of these kids kind of engaging and excited with all of that.
Speaker 2:Why is the film festival important? I think a lot of times when you look at film, it's kind of seems like a frivolous when your kids even talk about how I want to be a filmmaker or I want to be a YouTuber because, let's be honest, a lot of kids that's their goal at this point.
Speaker 4:Why is that important? To encourage that? Yeah, that's a good question and I think it's one that we frequently have asked ourselves when because you need to revisit why are we doing this? Why are we putting as much you know energy and effort into this? And you know, canyons has always had a college and career focus, and I feel like the film festival supports both of those.
Speaker 4:If students really are interested in the filmmaking industry, this is an incredible opportunity for them. We tie in a lot of those. You know, career and technical skills when it comes to production, and it's an opportunity to be introduced to possibilities of careers. And I work at UEN now and that is one of our broadcast goals is to introduce career opportunities in the world of broadcast and film and video and media production to students, and almost every field, almost every career, almost every job that you could go into has an element of media production in it. You might not be the media producer, but someone in your organization probably is doing that. You're probably going to be connected somehow, and there are job opportunities for students out there that we may not have even thought of before. I have a whole media team at UEN, for example, who produces video content. So that is sort of the career side.
Speaker 4:But I've always said, even if you never go into film, the skills that are learned through that filmmaking process are vital skills for any student, any person going into the community, into the workforce, because in order to create a quality production, you have to be able to do what we refer to often as the four Cs right you have to be able to create, you have to be able to communicate, you have to be able to collaborate and there's critical thinking involved every step of the way From planning, there's research, there's writing, there's thinking through, there's storyboarding.
Speaker 4:Then there's the actual like let's get this on camera, all the way down to editing, where you have to make critical choices about where do I cut this to deliver the message that I want. And, as Justin said, a lot of these are group projects and so they're having to do this with other people and talk to each other and come to agreements on things. And I haven't even mentioned yet when the film is based in core content, you know. So there's just so many on both the college and career side of things, so many reasons.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I would say that filmmaking is one of those really cool things that anyone can do.
Speaker 3:Right, everyone has a story to tell, but it encompasses all of those amazing things we just want students to learn how to do.
Speaker 3:We want them to learn how to think through, how to tell a story, how to kind of critically think what do I need to do with this? And so I kind of equate it to you know, back in the day you go out, you would, you know, just kind of explore your neighborhood, play with your friends, and you would learn things as you go through those experiences. And filmmaking does a lot of that for our students. They pick up their phone, they pick up a camera and they just start shooting and they start to realize, oh, that didn't work, this did, and it just puts so much critical thinking into one box and the students like it, because we are, as you said in the intro, like there are so many media sources today and our students are going to be exposed to them. And so if we can take and help our students understand how those things are made and how to make those things in a smart way, it just it helps, helps them better navigate the world moving forward too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I like that point of how it helps them consume those things then as well. So we interviewed at UEN a teacher who is actually a CTE teacher so this is part of his curriculum and he was teaching kids about filmmaking and he showed them a sample of a film that looked like a certain sequence of events had happened. They talked about the technical side of that and how would you edit that and splice things together to make that flow? And he talked about Is this real? Is this really what happened? When you consume content online through video, through other things, are you thinking about the fact that, well, that didn't actually happen or it didn't happen in that way? And so, immediately, there's these nice media literacy and consumer lessons that they're learning as they're exploring as well consumer lessons that they're learning as they're exploring as well.
Speaker 2:So what were the first years like of getting it started? Was it difficult to? I mean, I would assume that it was difficult to really get people interested, to get the word out, to get people to actually complete films, because it is a side project that, if it's not an assignment, it is a lot of work to put a film together. So how hard was it to actually get people to?
Speaker 4:participate. Yeah, it was a challenge. I love hearing Justin saying now teachers are like okay, I'm teaching this concept or this event, or, and we're just going to plan on this being our filmmaking unit. I'm like yay, because at the start it it was not the case. I don't have the skills to do this, I don't have the time to do this, this is extra, it's not part of my curriculum and I'm not saying that in negative towards teachers. That's absolutely the case If you don't know how to build it into the teaching process, if you don't know how to build it into the teaching process, if you don't know how to utilize it as an assessment tool. And so, yeah, it was tough. I would say that it was pretty grassroots at first. I knew, because I was an ed tech in the schools, of certain teachers who liked to do this type of thing, and so I milked them.
Speaker 4:You're my best friend and you are going to make films and I'm going to help you, and so it was a lot of let me help you see how this can fit into this unit. Let me help you with the technical pieces and, by the way, your students probably already know a lot of the technical pieces, so it's okay that you don't and lots of convincing and hand-holding, as it should be.
Speaker 3:Well, I think technology was a piece, a missing piece, early on as well, because we had a lot of teachers who said I just don't know how to do this from an equipment standpoint, like what do I use right? And so we were always having to come up with. I mean, we had kits that we would loan out to teachers, and now we've kind of moved into a place where every teacher, every student has something. The requests I get for equipment and those types of things so minimal now compared to what it was even when I was involved at the beginning-ish, you know, several years ago. So I think that has increased in our schools, that access to equipment and that access to students just picking up their phone and sharing a story too.
Speaker 4:If the students got excited about this opportunity, then the teachers got excited that the kids were excited. And if a school could be put in the spotlight because they did something amazing, that helped. If we could get on the news, which Jeff Haney and the communications department has always been really good at that, all of these things could help people start to see, oh, this is a thing and oh, they just got, you know, a big light shown on their school. What could we do? So I think that's partly why that element besides the fact that it's just fun and learning should be fun but that helped to spread the word and encourage people.
Speaker 2:Well, set the stage for a little bit for what? The actual night of the film festival, the final evening of the awards, what that's like, because it is a special evening. You have created a Hollywood event with Glitz and Glam.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's something that has been. It's something that I walked into and saw. You know, katie had kind of created this huge night with the red carpet and kind of all the movie pieces and the fun and exciting and making it a night out for the family, making it something fun to celebrate the student who's involved in the film festival, and so we've continued that with the very suits and sparkly dresses, our tuxedos, red carpet event, getting their photo taken, having, you know, these fun props and things to kind of enjoy and bring it to life a little bit. And I think students and families have really kind of come to enjoy that having that moment in the spotlight. For some students who don't necessarily get in the spotlight all the time as well, right, so we have students who may not get involved in other activities, but film festival is one of those things that they get involved with and so it's a fun night to have to kind of still celebrate them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I would have to give kudos to Canyon's administration and communications, because when we approach them with this vision of let's make this something big, let's make the night literally a red carpet night. Let's tell people to dress up, let's have food and popcorn and prizes and let's say the nominees are just like an Oscar night, they were like, yeah, ok, let's you know. Say the nominees are, you know, just like an Oscar night. They were like, yeah, okay, let's do it.
Speaker 4:Here's how much we can put in to a budget. Here are other ways that we can involve. You know, and everybody was willing to be part of that team and, honestly, all the way from you know, the department level up through the superintendent level, everybody was on board and that meant a lot when your idea is adopted, like that. But also I think, it goes. I think it's a really nice example of when each department, each group is willing to put in their expertise for a project like this. It can just become something phenomenal way more than it could have been just with me.
Speaker 3:It truly is a Canyons District Film Festival because everyone is involved from top to bottom and I would say one of my favorite award shows we ever had was during our COVID years, so film festival could not be stopped, you know. So students were still submitting films and Katie kind of figured out how are we going to do this? And we went to a live stream awards ceremony still in the sparkly dresses and tuxedos, with Jeff Haney and we had a huge number of students still submit that year and tell their story and it was so fun to kind of show those and explore those, sitting, you know, in a conference room off in the side by ourselves and seeing online all these people watching and enjoying and still getting a piece of that kind of celebration and feeling excited and enjoying themselves, which was super fun to have too.
Speaker 2:What is your favorite memory of, like favorite film or favorite memory from?
Speaker 3:So mine's not necessarily a favorite film. Mine is a favorite experience. That happens every year with the film festival is we get to watch all of them and there are some wonderful films.
Speaker 3:There are some films that only a mother would love you know, there are and they're kind of some of my favorites, but we get to watch all of them and experience, you know, all of these different things that we go. What was that? But someone made it and submitted it and I love that. A student felt that way, right, it's always fun when all of a sudden we have 72 videos of the life cycle of a butterfly because a teacher made it as a project, and so all of these kids are submitting videos of a life cycle of a butterfly. But to get to watch all of those, that's kind of my favorite thing to do every year.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it can be a tad tedious to watch all 72 versions of a butterfly life cycle, but just enjoying and seeing all of these fun stories that kids have to tell, from these kindergartners who are just telling the story with some Legos that they have to some of our high school students who are telling really compelling stories that blow me away that you know there was a few that we had about distracted driving and whatnot that I just it like got me emotionally. I was like this is such a good portrayal of your story and so there's just a lot of fun things. So I always love that time of starting to kind of whittle through them and seeing what students have submitted.
Speaker 4:I think maybe one of my favorite memories was our 10th anniversary. That was what the second to last year that I did it and we were able to actually go to the Larry H Miller Megaplex and have one of the theaters rented out and everybody again came in best dressed and we laid out the red carpet and in addition to the cool films that we saw that year, we also we tried our best anyway to bring in sort of alumni of the event and so to see little cameos from these students that at least I had gotten to know through the film festival and kind of a where are they now? Type of thing. We even had like little celebrity cameos.
Speaker 3:Shout outs yeah shout outs.
Speaker 4:It was a night of a look at where we've come and look at some of these.
Speaker 4:You know students who have gone through this experience. It was just really rewarding and, I think, really a fun event for the community. But I do have to also say that there are student filmmakers in films that stand out, and that was a night to remember some of those films as well. There was one year where these boys from Hillcrest High submitted these phenomenal films and they had been working on them. I think they took the Spy Hop summer program to kind of get better at their filmmaking skills and I feel like that was a turning point that built up to this 10th anniversary, that other students started to see what a student film really could be when they saw documentaries like the Burrito Project and when they saw some of these suspenseful films that they created with cool edits and special effects, and so I appreciate all they did for the festival. And then again, I think that's why the 10th anniversary was even extra special for me, to sort of remember the great things that had been done over the years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a good way to kind of look at it. So in the district office in the hallway we have all the posters. You can see this timeline, this progression of the festival and of the abilities that students as they're submitting to it and working through, and you can see the uniqueness and, like, the personality of different film festivals, because that poster kind of becomes the motif for the whole film festival, right, and so it's just fun to kind of see that progression over time and laid out in that timeline in the hallway. It kind of just shows look where we started, which is still amazing, and look where we are now and how many more students are getting access to this and rewards from it.
Speaker 2:And don't you have students that, like every year, they enter?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, like we'll see the same student from elementary all the way up to high school.
Speaker 3:There are so many times, like when I first started working with kids, like, oh yeah, so I remember they did this and this and this and this and this and this, right, and so I've been able to see them as they continue to grow and grow and grow until they're in 12th grade and they submit and move on, and so it's super fun because it's one of those things where these students that are submitting are interested, they like it and we try and make it a fun place, that they want to come back, and so they do.
Speaker 3:They come back. And there's a lot of opportunities for non-filmmakers, right. So there is the poster contest, where those who aren't interested in a film can submit to the poster contest and develop that. We even have the teacher side as well, and I think that's been something super fun because we've gotten to see some teachers, year after year after year, submitting amazing, beautiful things. Some pop up, submit something for a year or two and then disappear. But to see those stories as well and to celebrate some of our teachers has been fun as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I pull some of my favorite films sometimes to show at conferences and things like that as examples, and so I was going through a few just before the recent USET conference and there was Abigail Slavikantron, however you say the name. I don't know if I ever said it right.
Speaker 4:But she was like in her Girl Scout uniform as like a I don't know seven-year-old, and then every year she submitted and I literally got a graduation announcement from her when she finished high school. And so, yeah, we get to know these students and they submit time and again. I have one of my favorite stories too, like a success story, if you will, is Taylor was a girl who I worked with at Sprucewood Elementary and she was on our podcast crew and she helped do the little weekly newscast that Sprucewood did and she was the editor and she just took to it and she ran the editing side of that show. So later, speaking of things that were challenging in the film festival, there were a few years that we did advertisements. There were some awesome things about that and some really challenging things about coordinating with local business owners to get students in to get footage.
Speaker 4:Well, we had this business owner who had said I want to have a commercial made, I want to be part of this, and we didn't have a filmmaker assigned to them. So I called Taylor, who was now in middle school, and she was like sure, and she came over and we did this whole you know commercial and then, because of these experiences and then bringing her back into it again. She ended up being one of the main video producers at Corner Canyon High School and then she went on to study that at, I believe, utah State University and now she is a professional photographer and videographer because she got asked to return and add her talents to this film festival once again. And, anyway, super cool to see their growth, their progression over the years.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. When are the dates for this year's film festival?
Speaker 3:So this year's film festival is on April 25th, 7 pm at Alta High School.
Speaker 2:Look forward to this year's film festival. You guys should be very proud of what you've created and what you've provided for our students. Thank you for listening to Connect Canyons. If you have story ideas, please contact us at communications at canyonsdistrictorg.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, facebook or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg.
