Filmmaking in the classroom enables students to explore any curriculum subject through the active process of making a film about it. I have seen filmmaking used to explore mathematics, science, language arts, physical Ed, language arts, social studies, media and much more. And I have seen it used at every grade level from kindergarten to fourth Year College.

Around the world, teachers are augmenting the five-page report with the five-minute video.
And what would you rather do? If you were asked to either write a five page report on a day in your life, or make a five-minute movie about a day in your life. Which would you choose? Which would be more fun? Which do you instantly feel excited about?

This is what is happening in classrooms. Teachers are discovering a passion for learning is being ignited because all of a sudden, learning is fun, cool and hip. I have listened to many stories from teachers who say that students who previously showed little interest in class are suddenly coming in early and staying late, and they are there so that they can make their film.

And not only does filmmaking in the classroom encourage student awareness, the development of creativity, the potential for engagement, and the exploration of technical learning, it also provides a beautiful bridge to life outside the classroom.

Visioning Skills
Filmmaking is about turning the intangible into the tangible. Regardless of the size of the film, Ben Hur or My Science Experiment, movies start with that wonderful thing called "the idea." As the idea formulates, a vision of the final film begins to develop. The challenge for students is to hold a clear picture in their mind of what they want to communicate and then to guide their film towards that vision. The goal is to put that vision on the screen.
It is also about learning the process of looking at where you want to be, looking at where you are now, and constructing a plan to connect the two. It is about exploring not only what the vision is, but also what the vision does. How it moves you into action, gets you up on your feet, and makes you advance in order to crystallize what you have in your mind. It is important that students develop visioning skills for both their present and future worlds. We need students to see how ideas can be transformed into action and how if they want to reach for something, if they can dream it, they can do it.

Research
When audiences go to see a film in the theatre, they seldom realize how much research goes into the making of the movie. In the formative stages, writers, directors and producers research story ideas that relate to the idea they are imagining. They interview people, read books, clip magazine articles, scan the Web, draw upon personal experiences and look to uncover information from anywhere they can, knowing that key secrets can be revealed in the least likely of places. Once an idea is decided upon, the filmmakers research in order to get a better understanding of the context and content of the story. One of the characters in my wife Linda’s latest screenplay works with autistic adults. Linda has been researching autism on the Web, interviewing caregivers working with autistic adults, and has arranged to work-shadow some of these caregivers and their clients. The more she researches, the more it informs her story. As information exponentially explodes all around us, the ability to effectively mine that information also increases. If we are to prepare students to make sense of all that information, then familiarization with good research skills -knowing where to find things, how to find things, who to ask, how to collect it and how to organize it -becomes another important skill developed by filmmaking.

This is why filmmaking with digital video in the classroom is both exciting and important.

Problem Solving
Turning the vision into the finished movie on screen requires a seemingly endless journey into problem solving, not only in terms of what do we want to show, but also, how we will show it.
As students set out to create their films and discover obstacles of time, of equipment and of other resources, they learn to identify and solve their own problems, and to own the process for finding solutions. It is then that these multiple, real world filmmaking challenges have become a great opportunity to experience real world problem solving.