We are a Christian, homeschooling family filled with a love for the arts, photography, musicals, and presenting everything we do in excellence for our King, so I was a wee bit excited to get a chance to review the Online Christian Filmmakers Academy from Family Gravity Media, a division of Families For Christ Ministries, Inc.
COUPON FOR MY READERS:
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What is the Online Christian Filmmakers Academy?
First, a background about the instructors:
The creators of Online Christian Filmmakers Academy are a homeschool family father and son. Zack is the son who is the instructor on film, and the dad is Ken Lawrence. The two have a passion for teaching aspiring Christian filmmakers to use the visual media for the glory of God! The dad had previous experience studying radio and TV broadcasting, so when his son became interested in filmmaking in 2002, they sought out together to learn more.
After attending workshops that did not offer hands-on training, they approached someone at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and Academy SAICFF, and the first hands-on, small group training camp session was started at the Lawrence's retreat center in Western Colorado - The first Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp began in February 2007. This grew into an online training session, which started in 2012, and is what is now being offered online. This online class was originally only offered in private sessions to those who had attended the camp, but in 2015 they opened it up to the public.
Each module contains about 5 to 15 videos filled with instruction. Most of them have closer to 6 videos within the module with the Cinematography/lighting module having the most videos at 15 instructional videos to complete the module.
Module 1 contains lessons about The Camera and ends with a Quiz:
Module 2 contains lessons about Cinematography with quite a bit about lighting as well as other elements of the filming process and is the longest module with 15 lessons and videos that are often closer to 12-33 minutes in length each:
The final module, Module 5, is all about production:
There was a quiz at the end of Module 1. The father son team are working to get quizzes, or tests, to eventually appear at the end of each module. The quiz at the end of Module 1 was 25 questions. You take the quiz online and immediately receive the answers upon completion.
Module 1 contains lessons about The Camera and ends with a Quiz:
Module 2 contains lessons about Cinematography with quite a bit about lighting as well as other elements of the filming process and is the longest module with 15 lessons and videos that are often closer to 12-33 minutes in length each:
Module 3 presents lessons about Sound:
Module 4 includes Pre-Production lessons:
There was a quiz at the end of Module 1. The father son team are working to get quizzes, or tests, to eventually appear at the end of each module. The quiz at the end of Module 1 was 25 questions. You take the quiz online and immediately receive the answers upon completion.
How Did We Use It?
As I mentioned earlier in this review, we are a family engulfed in the arts. My husband is a professional musician, and my readers know that every year we go on a 5-week tour with the entire family in tow. Not enjoying the limelight myself, I have had a long-time love for photography and use this skill often mostly just for my own pleasure but also through the quality of pictures I take for my Etsy and eBay items for sale. A good quality picture makes all the difference between a sale or no sale/happy customer or frustrated one. My middle daughter has recently become engulfed in the world of musicals. She has a lovely voice, comes alive on stage, and has a huge background in dance. There is no doubt she is my hubby's daughter. My oldest son is more like me, not liking the limelight, but does have his own YouTube channel, has played around with green screens, and loves tips on great cinematography elements. My youngest is all about hands-on learning with an amazing gift for painting and digital art, so all of us are perfect candidates for this course. When I received this online Christian Filmmakers Academy, I had originally hoped I could use it with my teen son, but I ended up watching the videos myself which, instead, surprisingly piqued the interest of my teenage daughter. I was able to get through the entire course during the review period, but you could easily spread this out over much longer time by watching one video a week and taking your time to get hands-on experience with what you learned before moving onto the next video, or whatever time schedule works for you.
What Did We Think?
The instruction is nice how it's broken down into fairly short segments of lessons. I also really liked the instructor as he really knows his stuff when it comes to film making, but he presents it in an understandable way. Another feature that is nice is the comments section where you can interact with others in the course or ask questions for the instructor. I asked a question in the comments section and received a response answer in less than 24 hours.
I also really appreciated how they incorporated Christian principles into their lessons. They were subtle and not in your face, but they guided the presentations with information such as how cameras are "light capturers", and then bringing it back to the create of light, God himself and with how a Christian filmmaker should be focused on excellence.
I cannot stress enough the excellence of the quality of the instruction in this course. It's packed with information and gives you the opportunity to try everything out with your own equipment, hands-on with quality lessons and attentive support.
I also really appreciated how they incorporated Christian principles into their lessons. They were subtle and not in your face, but they guided the presentations with information such as how cameras are "light capturers", and then bringing it back to the create of light, God himself and with how a Christian filmmaker should be focused on excellence.
I cannot stress enough the excellence of the quality of the instruction in this course. It's packed with information and gives you the opportunity to try everything out with your own equipment, hands-on with quality lessons and attentive support.
FIND Christian Filmmakers Academy ON SOCIAL MEDIA @:
Current facebook page for our hands-on film camp is: www.facebook.com/christianfilmmakerscamp
New facebook page for just the Online Christian Filmmakers Academy: www.facebook.com/ChristianFilmmakersAcademy
Find out more at www.ChristianFilmmakersAcademy.com
New facebook page for just the Online Christian Filmmakers Academy: www.facebook.com/ChristianFilmmakersAcademy
Find out more at www.ChristianFilmmakersAcademy.com
Read what other members of the Homeschool Review Crew thought by clicking on the picture below:
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