Calhoun Summer Camps offer your child curated opportunities to engage with peers as they explore, create and share. The programs are designed and offered by professional faculty who center Calhoun’s mission and progressive approach. These camps will provide an engaging space where participants are inspired to play safely, innovate confidently, think critically and collaborate respectfully.
Movie-Making Camp for 3rd-6th Graders - Rob Kleinschmidt
3, 2, 1 Action! Calhoun Movie-Making Camp goes into production! If your child enjoys making movies, playing and listening to music, drawing, writing, and just plain being creative, then this camp is for them!
Campers get the opportunity to write their own scripts and music, create their own settings, act, direct, do their own camera work, and edit as they make some wonderful claymation, stop-action, cartoon, and live-action movies. Kids even go outdoors to film “on-location” in the neighborhood. The end result–some fun, funny, and terrific movies!
Movie-Making camp will switch to online in the event of a confirmed COVID-19 case by a participant.
Teacher Bio: Rob Kleinschmidt has been teaching filmmaking and animation at the Calhoun lower school for 13 years and is the creator and lead teacher of the Calhoun Movie Making Camp, which is entering its tenth year. He is a stop motion animator whose short films have been screened at festivals and theaters around the world and he is a programmer for the Slamdance Film Festival.
Story Pirates: Outer Space Adventures for 2nd-6th Graders - Peter Russo
Campers will construct a rocket ship and blast off to the stars...in their imaginations! They'll explore real planets, imaginary planets, unimaginable planets, and finally answer the age-old question: are alien animals adorable, ferocious, mind-blowingly weird, or all three? At the end of camp, families will be invited to see the campers perform stories about their outer space adventures (like, in person, in a theater, not on a screen)!
Teacher Bio: Peter Russo has worked professionally in theater for 30 years as an actor, puppeteer, scenic carpenter, stagehand, electrician, technical director and teacher. He is a founding member of Story Pirates, a group dedicated to celebrating the words and ideas of young people, and a company member of Wakka Wakka, with whom he has performed in at least seven different productions. Peter teaches various theater classes in the Middle and Upper School at Calhoun, is the resident Production Manager, and is also the "animal handler" of the one and only COUGAR CUB!
Leigh Paulos is an actor, writer, and teaching artist, who has been sailing the storied seas with Story Pirates since 2010. She has performed at venues including Classic Stage Co, St. Ann's Warehouse, Portland Stage, and Lincoln Center Education and has taught for some of NYC's top cultural institutions including Park Avenue Armory, New-York Historical Society, MoMA and the Onassis Center. Leigh co-created a brand new interactive sci-fi podcast for young people: S.O.U.P: The Surveyors of Unused Potential, produced by Trusty Sidekick Theater Company. Leigh brings her love of music, puppeteering, and visual art to her multidisciplinary approach to arts education, and loves devising new work with intergenerational artists.
