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Summer of Funner 2012 Film Festival

Since this edition of the Summer of Funner is coming to a close, we thought we’d use our final post to list the movies that we saw and ”reviewed” this summer. The theme of this Summer’s Movies was “Colourful Movies.” This year, we added a few new releases to the mix. And, for the at home movies, we made some fancy tickets!

Summer of Funner 2012 Film Festival

The Amazing Spiderman (Webb, 2012)
Moonrise Kingdom (Anderson, 2012)
The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Anderson, 2009)
The Kingdom of the Fairies (Melies, 1903) & Nothing Sacred (Wellman, 1937)
Farenheit 451 (Truffaut, 1966)
Fantastic Voyage (Fleischer, 1966) & Cyborg 2087 (Adreen, 1966)
Desk Set (Lang, 1957)
Hugo (Scorsese, 2011)
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Here are Six Tips and Tricks for Hosting a Great Family Film Festival of your own.

1) Pick a set date, time, and overall time-span for your film festival.
We watched a movie every Tuesday of the Summer (a ten week span) at 6:30pm sharp. You might also just pick a weekend to do a marathon. Or, you might watch a movie in 20 minute installments each evening before supper. This fall, we’ll likely view a movie every other Saturday. And, we’ll change it up after the holidays to keep things fresh!

2) Choose a theme for your film festival.
This summer, we kept our theme open, choosing “Colourful Films” as a catch-all for movies that used colour in interesting ways. Last New Year’s Eve, we had an impromptu Sherlock Holmes marathon. We’ve also focused on Shakespeare films, book adaptations, and innovative movies. This fall, we’re thinking of picking a favourite director and his or her influences or a favourite actor or actress.

3)  Make a calendar or program and tickets.
Whet everyone’s appetite for the films by making a film festival calendar and posting it on a corkboard or fridge. If you prefer to keep the titles a secret (or if you need to operate on a bit more of an impromptu vibe), just mark the “film festival” date and time on a big family calendar in the kitchen! On the night of the movie, issue movie tickets or grab a roll of tickets from the dollar store for the kids to swap for refreshments.

4) Look for free stuff whenever possible!
Scour your local public library’s listing of available titles and score those movies for free! Check your local listings for films that will air on television and record them or watch them as the air. Swap dvds with friends and family.

5) Serve thematic treats or meals.
Experiment with movie-themed snacks or a dinner that fits with the plot or storyline of your film! (This worked well for us on our Sherlock Holmes night.) Watching Harry Potter? Whip up your own imagined version of “butter beer” or chocolate frogs. Watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Order a pizza!  Sleeping Beauty? ”Poisoned” Apple Slices (apples dipped in caramel or chocolate sauce). Once and a while, it’s alright to break the “dinner table” rule and have some fun right in front of the television. Cut yourself some slack and let loose! Eat when the characters in the film eat or when they say certain key phrases or when the camera changes shots or angles!

6) Follow up with movie reviews or other film related activities.
Write about your favourite scenes! Draw pictures of them! Have the kids perform exact copies or modernized versions of their favourite scenes and record them. (This worked well for us with stuffed toys when we watched Bringing up Baby a few years ago!) Compare and contrast the movies you’ve watched all season! Here’s a copy of our Movie Review Worksheet from our post on Moonrise Kingdom & Kids Movie Reviews in pdf format: Movie Review Worksheet pdf. You can also copy and paste the image below:

Don’t forget to join us this September over at our sister site: http://www.thelunchboxseason.com!

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Tags: family film festival, family film festival tips, hosting a family film festival, how to host a film festival, kids, kids crafts, kids movie reviews, movie review worksheet, movie reviews, printable movie review worksheet, summer activities, things to do with kids, things to do with kids over the summer, Things to do with the kids, tips and tricks

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Categories Film, Film Review, Fun! Arts & Crafts, Science, Discovery, & Social Responsibility, Summer of Funner Film Fest, Writing

Outdoor Mural – Phase One – Sketching From Our Favourite Artists

1 Aug

Several years ago, decades ago, as the case may be, my husband and his parents painted an outdoor mural on a piece of plywood and installed it at the back left-hand corner of their garden. Whenever I even think of going over to their house, this is the image that comes to mind: a large face or mask, somewhat similar to one of the great Moai of Easter Island. I’m sentimental about it. I am sure we all are. So, this summer, we decided to paint a large outdoor mural on a piece of plywood and “install” it in our own garden, both as an homage to that first painting and as a newly-beloved object of our own.

The first step has been to come up with an idea of what to paint!
So far, we’ve got four general threads going:
1) Some sort of “tree” related mural to memorialize the very large, very beautiful cherry tree that used to stand in our back yard. (Just now, its final blooms are pictured on the header to this journal.) Just this spring, our 60+-year-old beauty, in full bloom, was taken up by the roots in a gust of wind and crashed down across our fence and into our neighbours’ back yards. No one was injured, thankfully. Although, it caused some interesting neighbourly drama that has been a learning experience for us all. In any case, we miss our tree most terribly!

2) An image of the female lamplighters painted by Paul Delvaux. I have been dying to do this for years, and it will be done regardless of whether it happens in the form of this particular mural or as one of my own.

3) A figure, face, or mask not unlike our inspiration piece across town.

4) A favourite animal.

Over the past few days, the kids have been looking at books featuring the work of some of their favourite artists.
Today, we spent time copying, imitating, and, generally, drawing inspiration from those works towards a design of their own.

Here’s the pile of books they chose to sketch from today. If you are looking to do something similar and if you don’t have anything on hand, it would be easy enough to choose library books:
Klee, A Study of his Life and Work, by Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, New York: Praeger 1957.
Stuart Davis, The Great American Artists Series, by E. G. Cossen, New York: Braziller, 1959.
Henry Moore, My Ideas, Inspiration and Life as an Artist, by Henry Moore & John Hedgecoe. London: Collins and Brown, 1999.
Ancient Egypt, Kingdom of the Pharoahs, by R. Hamilton. Bath: Parragon, 2005.
The Imperial Collection of Audubon Animals, Ed. Victor H. Cahalane. New York: Bonanza.
The World of Henri Rousseau, by Yann le Pichon. New York: Viking, 1982.

Here are the artists at work:

And here are the completed sketches beside their inspiration pieces!

Tobes:

Snake. Inspired by Stuart Davis. Still Life with Saw. 1930.

The Tiny Chipmuk. Inspired by Audubon. Colorado Chipmunk.

Marmot Marmot. Inspired by Audubon. Yellow-Bellied Marmot.

The Snake Who Only Reads. Inspired by a page from Ancient Egypt.

The Mask of Strangeness. Inspired by a wooden African mask from Henry Moore’s collection.

“Ah Never Mind!” The Treadmill’s Not Working! Inspiration: The 2012 Olympics.

Bea:

London with Lights. Inspired by Paul Klee. Town with Watchtowers. 1929.

The Old Tree. Inspired by the landscape that inspired Henry Moore. A tree in the Adel Woods.

Egyptian with Knife and Toy. Inspired by a Relief from the White Chapel of Senusret I at Karnak.

The Mask. Inspired by a wooden African mask in Henry Moore’s collection.

Jaguar. Inspired by Henri Rousseau. Negro Attached by a Jaguar.
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