The Reel Fun Family Day at Loose Moose Theatre kicked off the 6th Annual Reel Fun Film Festival. The day began with an authentic film industry experience where kids could actually do activities that would be specialized occupations on a film set. From Make-Up artist all the way to Director, the stations set up allowed kids to move around an interactive film set with various jobs to do. There were plenty of award winning local industry professionals on hand to mentor the kids and share their wealth of knowledge about the film industry. Although this was the sixth year the Reel Fun Film Festival has been going on, this was the first year I had attended this Festival. This festival is a very unique introduction to film for children, as well as a fantastic way to plant a seed of interest in different avenues of film making. Calgary has been home to many talented people to go on to direct, produce,and sound engineer for films, it was nice to see them out expressing their passion for what they do.
My girls are 2 ½ and 3 ½ years old, a bit younger than the recommended 5 years old and up, even so, they really enjoyed the Festival. The Puppets station where they created origami birds, and the Claymation station where the kids could make plasticine modeling clay figures to create a stop-go digital animation film were very popular with my little ones.
The Shorts Series film for the young kids (5+) were very well programmed, and actually kept my kids in their seats for the entire duration (a miracle). One film in particular Mashed enthralled my kids, about a little boy doomed to sit at the dinner table until his plate is clean. He imagines a mashed potato villain he needs to defeat. This film may have even encouraged my children to finish their dinner. If that film wasn’t influential to their nutrition enough, the film Broccoli Monster surely will haunt them, a film about an obnoxious 8 year old that refuses to eat his broccoli until visited during the night by an actual Broccoli Monster. I don’t think we will have any issues with picky eating in my house for a while, particularly when it comes to broccoli. All the films were very cute, and captivating, for both my kids and myself, plus the films were accompanied by very tasty popcorn. I highly recommend checking out some of the other programmed films in the Reel Fun Film Festival.
Photo Courtesy of R.I.T. The Rochester Institute of Technology
The Reel Fun Family Festival runs until February 26, 2012, there are lots of great films for all ages screening. Please visit their web-site for more details: www.reelfunfest.com
Special Thanks to CalgaryMovies.com
