Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Merit Badge of the Week: Cinematography





America loves movies.  Even small towns have a movie theater with the latest films from Hollywood.  Libraries loan DVDs and video stores abound.  Netflix will deliver them to your mailbox or over the Internet.

Need more?  Youtube is one of the most popular sites on the Internet.  In just under five years, Youtube has become a household name--20 hours of video are uploaded every minute.

According to Wikipedia, the Cinematography merit badge came to life with the help of an Eagle Scout--Steven Spielberg.  Apparently he personally attended the National Jamboree in 1989 to help launch the award as a merit badge counselor.

While this merit badges had a high-profile start, the Cinematography merit badge has been awarded only about 50,000 times in 20 years.

Resources
  1. Basics
  2. Cinematography.com--forums for amateur and professional cinematographers
  3. Boy Scouts of America on Youtube, and Boy's Life on Youtube
  4. Free Microsoft Movie Maker software download.
  5. Microsoft:  Get Started with Windows Movie Maker--this is what you can do.  Wow.
  6. Microsoft:  Creating and Sharing Great Movies--adding titles, credits, music and special effects to your movie
  7. 4-H has a filmmaking studio online.  Very educational and makes you feel like you can do it!
  8. Camera and sound techniques from an amateur filmmaker.
  9. Filmmaking for Dummies book--nuts and bolts for anyone to be able to make a film
  10. TV, video and motion picture camera operator career information:  Bureau of Labor Statistics
Related Merit Badges:  Graphic Arts, Photography, Theatre


Comments or resources to share?  Please leave a note in the Comments section or tweet away.


1 comment:

Adam R. Cox said...

Hi there: One thing that I would ad to this blog is that the Macintosh OS has a ton of software that kids can use. A lot of schools have Macintoshes. So if a scout needs access, that would be one place to look.