About the Project

Let’s Make Movies (LMM) is digital film-making summer camp held at the historic Tampa Theater in downtown Tampa. Formerly known as “Kids Make Movies,” LMM has been a Tampa favorite since 2004. LMM is produced as a partnership between the Florida Center for Instructional Technology (FCIT) and the Tampa Theater. FCIT is based at the College of Education at the University of South Florida. Typically, four one-week camp sessions are offered, and the camp counselors are graduates of the teacher preparation program at USF. Participants (students between the ages of 9 and 16) create stop-motion animation and live-action short films in small collaborative groups over the course of each one-week session and present their creations on Friday of each week in a film festival format.

About the Research

The CLC has been conducting research at the camp since 2007. CLC researchers observe the process and the products of the camp. The CLC has the goals of documenting the use of literacy skills among participants engaged in creating digital media and studying the interaction between students and counselors in new literacy settings. We seek to inform teacher training and teacher preparation by examining the composition process in this distinctly out-of-school context.

The creative work of the campers involves media literacy and intertextuality. We have investigated the power and roles that filmmakers and counselors adopt throughout the production process. Our research methods include rhizomatic analysis, memetic analysis, and communitarian grounded theory. We have used a modified version of the Six Traits of Writing model to assess the films produced by the campers. We have centered our work at the camp on a concept we call “fast literacy,” a name derived from “fast capitalism,” a phrase coined by the New London Group (1996).

Let's Make Movies Website

Tampa Theatre Summer Camp Website