Laura Power
Northern News Services
Monday, July 9, 2007

IQALUIT - Youth in Iqaluit are being given a chance later this month to learn the ropes of filmmaking.

Actua, an Ottawa-based company that provides science and technology based camps for youth across Canada, has been in Iqaluit for three years running, offering one of their camps to kids up to the age of 12. Now the company is offering a week-long filmmaking program for an older age group - teenagers between the ages of 13 and 16.

Megan Hunt of Iqaluit took part in the science and technology camp offered by Actua last year in Iqaluit. - photo courtesy of Actua

Rick Armstrong, manager of scientific support services for the Nunavut Research Institute, said this new program will give kids in that age group something interesting to do during the summer. He said they had received requests from parents of teens in this age group to hold a program that would be suitable for them.

Students of the regular science and technology program, he said, enjoy it very much.

"We get a lot of repeat kids because they’re popular... they’re usually really excited about coming back," he said.

"We wanted to do something new and something different there," said Sharina Dodsworth, manager of outreach programs for Actua.

She said the program will teach the students all the basics of filmmaking, from script writing to music production to editing. She said she believes they will split into groups of four for the production of the films, and split into pairs for the editing.

"By the end of the week, they’ll get their own movie production that they’ll get to showcase to their parents," she said.

Iqaluit was chosen to pilot the project. The filmmaking workshop will likely become a much more widespread activity next year and be brought to communities such as Iglulik.

"Next year we’re planning to offer it in Iglulik as well," she said. "Because they have the Isuma video production there... we thought it would be a neat link for that community."

For Iqaluit, she said, it’s "a way to engage the younger generation in the science and techology of movie making... another way to show them how technology is related to their everyday lives and how it plays a role in things that they’re interested in and they might not have even imagined."

The program will take place between July 23-27 at Nunavut Arctic College. On the final day, the new filmmakers will get a chance to show the finished products to their parents.