Superheroes

My sister in her Wendy House is trying to win a car. The first stage of this involved saying who is a Superhero in your family. She does have a lovely way with words and once she has her angle, she can be pretty unstoppable. Her angle was this:

• nan and grandad are the superheroes in our family
• both in their seventies, grandad has arthritic knees but still very involved in family life
• 13 grandchildren ranging in age from 3months to 23years (just remembering their names is superheroic!)
• happily married for 55years 
• to celebrate their wedding anniversary, they are taking the whole family away for a long weekend in a manor house

I actually think my mum is a superhero because if you give her a bag of rotten old windfalls, she will take them away and come back next time with a delicious apple pie. My sister did not use this fact but she obviously impressed the judges because they asked her to submit a video giving a flavour of a typical family gathering. This is where I came in.

For the last five summers, Taylor has taken it upon herself to make a movie with her sisters and cousins. The whole process from script writing to scheduling to filming to editing, is all their own work. It has become something of a family tradition to support their efforts in whatever way possible, including the occasional acting role, and to hold a Premiere just before the new school term starts. 

The first movie, Time Spy, featured hapless special agent Jake Bullet and his scientist friend, Professor Geiger, who invents a time gun. The following year, Time Spy 2 took a closer look at Jake's nemesis, Black-Eye Bill. Year 3 saw a departure from this genre into horror with Call of the Corpses contrasted a year later with Once Upon a Fairy Tale, complete with animated opening sequence. Finally, this year's project, Deadline, was a musical with five original songs. 

As they learned from their mistakes and ambition grew, Taylor found the limitations of her editing software  increasingly frustrating. So in the spirit of 'supporting their efforts in whatever way possible', my husband purchased a second-hand Apple Mac computer and Taylor bought Final Cut Po to use with it. She has a lot still to learn about the capabilities of the new software but it is opening up a world of possibilities. 

And a world of possibilities has opened for me too with the access I now have to iMovie. For a long time, in fact since I had my very first video camera some 14 years ago, I have wanted try my hand at editing, and now I can - very easily. Which takes me back to my sister's attempt to win a car and her need for a video to substantiate her claim that our parents are superheroes.

We were having a big get together anyway to welcome back our gorgeous nephew, Tom, who had been in America for the last few months working in a Summer Camp for disabled adults.  We shot some fairly random footage which I then happily cut together to tell a story. I was really pleased with the result which elicited quite an emotional response from mum and dad when I showed it to them.

The judges liked what they saw too. The Wendy House received a phone call interview to find out more about the whole family, various attributes and how we spend our time. Should we progress to the next level, we will have to throw a party under the watchful gaze of a film crew! 

My sister may or may not ultimately win her car but for me, I'm enjoying the ride ...