Celebrate your child's love of learning

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Rules for Flip Ultra give away

A Cannes-do guide to kid moviemaking.

Interior, Apple Store (Los Angeles) — morning

A sleek, high-tech store in a mall, across from Banana Republic. Today it's packed with kids yelling "Action!" and "Cut!" A 5-year-old in a baseball cap, Alexander, towers over the lens of a camera held by his crouching 8-year-old sister Jane. Cast as an evil robot, he's attempting to look gigantic enough to take over the world. His name: Technolotron 2000. His goal: planetary domination. Our only hope: two girls trying to break the code on an all-powerful computer.

The name of the movie is Code to the Future, and my 11-year-old daughter Elana was one of the filmmakers who brought this masterpiece to the annals of cinema. It started with a call from my friend Jessica, who was taking her kids Jane and Alexander to a moviemaking workshop. Would any of my three be interested? Joey, 2, was clearly too small. Abby, almost 15, said she was too old for anything called "camp" — and according to her, she already knows everything anyway. But Elana, the aspiring actress, was up for it, so off we went.

Apple Camp is a series of free 2 1/2 hour classes designed to teach kids how to create cool stuff on computers: podcasts, websites, music, movies. (Enrollment is on a first-come, first-served basis; you can check availability at your local Apple store. And I swear Steve Jobs isn't paying me to write this.)

At movie camp, the store's hip young employees put 16 kids in four teams, then each team scripts, shoots, and edits a two-minute film. It's primarily for ages 8 to 12, but I saw kids as young as 5 there. On the day we went, small directors were diving around display shelves, wielding cameras, and shouting,"Go! Oops! Cut! I missed it!" It was a funny mix, from little kids just happy to be allowed near the equipment to a young Spielberg, age 11, who showed up with his own camera, basic blacks, and an auteur's swagger. Spielberg assembled an A team that included three other largish boys; they made a special-effects-laden movie about the destruction of the world that had some pacing problems but did feature a couple of fairly sophisticated Al Gore jokes.

The kids took turns shooting and acting in the scenes, then stood around an iMac and used iMovie software to edit their footage. They learned to make titles and credits, do voice-overs, and add special effects, from split screens to lightning. The kids left camp with DVDs of their movies, notebooks for storyboarding, and a burning desire to make more movies. (I should say here that you don't have to be a Mac household to shoot your own cinema.

For kids, moviemaking is the 21st-century version of putting on a show in the barn: It requires the same creativity, cooperation, patience, and focus, all important qualities even for those who won't grow up to be filmmakers. Making movies also gives kids the chance to use technology in an active, imaginative way instead of being stuck in the passive-observer mode. And they get to wield artistic control when they edit the final cut, which seems to thrill them even more than the finished product itself. Our kids were so enthusiastic that Jessica and I made another screenplay date.

In preparation, I turned my home into a studio back lot. Elana had the brilliant plan to use an old coatrack for hanging costumes to inspire story lines. Fifteen years of Halloweens had given us an ample supply, and for once I was pleased with my inability to throw anything away. Jessica, Jane, and Alexander also brought plastic machine guns and lightsabers, but the kids concocted a plot based on what they wanted to wear.

The movie, titled The Gingerbread Girl, went something like this: Two best friends in pink tutus go to a costume party. There, an evil witch (played by Abby) turns the spoiled one ("My dad gave me a billion dollars for my birthday ") into a gingerbread cookie by giving her candy. The other girl seeks out a wizard to reverse the spell and kill the witch — using candy again. (Thankfully, I had a half roll of Life Savers left over from a plane trip.)

Int. Suburban House — afternoon

SPOILED GIRL in a tutu lies splayed on the floor of the dining room at the feet of a WICKED WITCH. A 4-foot-tall CINEMATOGRAPHER moves around the body, while THE BABY lurks just off camera. Eerie music from a spooky Halloween tape plays in the background.

WICKED WITCH: Cut! Did you get it, Alexander?

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Yep!

It would be a Tinseltown fairy tale to say the shoot went off without a hitch. If you try this at home (which I highly recommend), prepare for a technical learning curve. We had a few compatibility issues, mostly involving transferring footage from different cameras into my Apple laptop . We lost the last couple of scenes, but ended on "to be continued" and the kids never missed them. The audio left a lot to be desired, and the kids didn't pay much attention to background, so my messy house was often all I saw.

But a couple of technical difficulties didn't matter; by the time we'd wrapped our shoot, kids ages 2 to 15 had all worked together spectacularly, laughed a lot, and ended a long summer day wanting more. And now, the best part: We get to plan the premiere.

Int. Suburban House — night

A giant bowl of popcorn sits on the floor. KIDS grab at it from all sides. PARENTS occupy the couches and sip inexpensive wine. THE BABY stands in front of the TV, turning it on and off. His FATHER grabs the child and puts him on his lap as the lights flick off and the MOVIE begins. On the screen . . . it's THE GINGERBREAD GIRL! APPLAUSE.

About the Author: Screenwriter Cary Bickley has some movie ideas she'd like to pitch to the kids. If they'll ever return her calls.

Notable Quotable: When kids take on the project of moviemaking, "you can see them taking themselves seriously," says Nancy Fletcher, executive director of ACT NOW!, an organization in Belchertown, Massachusetts, that brings girls together to make improvisational films. "They get out of their roles as kids, and there's a shift of authority. It's the same kind of authority you see when you watch kids play by themselves, when they think no one is around."

Caveat Director

Cameras and computers don't always play nicely together. Cameras save files in various formats, and different kinds of editing software read certain formats and not others. Save the melodrama for the screen — before you buy a camera, make sure its system requirements are compatible with your computer's operating system. We recommend a little independent web research: A manufacturer may say your equipment is compatible, and that may be true, technically. You will not realize how technically until you need to run all your movie files through conversion software designed by NASA. Honestly, plain old Googling (entering " Sanyo compatible iMovie," for instance) may yield more useful results than wading through the consumer electronics reviews.

Next: Gearing Up: The cameras that worked for us.

Plus: Rules for Flip Ultra give away

Gearing Up: The cameras that worked for us.

Low-Budget Hit: With four buttons, the Flip Ultra is so easy it turned our 5- year-old tester into Orson Welles. The sound and picture are excellent for a camera this size (about 1 1/2 by 4 inches) and price ($150 for 1 GB, or up to 30 minutes of footage; theflip.com). The built-in software (which works on both PCs and Macs) lets you save video files to your hard drive, upload to the web, and do some basic editing (selecting files to play in order, adding background music).

Independent Breakout: For kids further along in their careers, the Aiptek Action HD 1080P is a more sophisticated option. (It's also a bit pricier, at $200; walmart.com.) It offers a zoom lens and plenty of choices for light adjustment (a night-shot feature, contrast control, a flash strobe) and playback (pause, rewind, and fast-forward buttons on the viewscreen). Our 12-year-old tester needed just a few minutes to figure it all out and is now on her way to filming the Playmobil version of Hamlet. Movies are saved as MOV files, which import into iMovie easily. If you're on a PC and using Pinnacle's Studio software (see below), you'll need to convert the movies to AVI files, which you can do by downloading a simple free program from a site like freemov2avi.com.

Blockbuster: Our writer liked the Sanyo Xacti VPC-EI; it's sleek, waterproof, and records on a memory card, which means it will store considerably more footage than a camera that records on an internal hard drive ($500, store.sanyousa.com).

Software for PCs: Pinnacle's Studio is a good choice for Windows users. The software does a lot of the things iMovie can do, including sound effects, scoring, transitions, and editing ($50, pinnaclesys.com).

Getting Your Props

A cineast's must-sit; this one can be personalized. ($35 for the kid-size version, everywherechair.com)

Seven stick-on mustaches, one entire wardrobe department. (Stylish Mustaches, $6, mcphee.com)

Nothing lends cinema vérité like the authoritative clap of a production slate. ($10, bhphotovideo.com)

Rules for Flip Ultra give away