GRAND FORKS – Could there be a future Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg among these children?

Maybe. Who knows?

Over the past two weeks, eight students at the Empire Arts Center-sponsored Teen Film Camp have had a taste of what goes into making a film—from brainstorming a story idea and writing a script to directing, shooting and producing a film.

The group will screen three of their short films – and conclude the camp experience with a red carpet film premiere on Sunday, August 11, at 5 p.m. on a big screen at the Empire Arts Center, 415 DeMers Ave.

The event is open to family, friends and community members. The five- to seven-minute films will be followed by a reception.

During the two-week camp, “we walk them through the principles of storytelling, character development, what a good plot is and what makes a good movie,” said David Kuznicki, who ran the camp with Kathy Coudle-King. Chief Artistic Director at the Empire.

Each child had a film idea and wrote a script.

After the scripts were written, “it was two days of shooting,” said Kuznicki, a staff producer at the UND School of Aerospace Sciences. “And then it was editing.”

The kids’ scripts “were all different and, you know, all really wild,” he said.

Campers also had the opportunity to hear from professional screenwriter Paul Thureen, who grew up in East Grand Forks and now works in New York City. Thureen is the son of Faythe Thureen, the former longtime Norwegian teacher at UND and director of a children’s literature conference, and the late Gordon Thureen, who farmed in the area.

Paul Thureen, who wrote the screenplay for the award-nominated film “Driveways,” is also a writer for shows such as “Somebody Somewhere,” “Strangers,” “High Maintenance” and “Mozart in the Jungle.”

During a writing practice session on Monday, August 5, Thureen spoke about his experiences and his journey to becoming a screenwriter. The session served as a transition from the writing phase to the shooting phase.

From Thureen, the children gained insights into the brainstorming process for a story idea and how to find inspiration.

“Everything you do, everything you see can be your inspiration,” he told the group. “Everything you see can be a movie, a TV show, a song – it’s a fun way to spend your life.”

On Monday, August 5, while the students were filming one of their scripts – this one about children trapped in an elevator – several of them crowded around the elevator at the Empire.

“If you were doing this with your friends, you’d leave the camera rolling,” Cuddle-King said. “We do multiple takes to spice it up a bit.”

The girl’s reaction to the trap – she snapped at the boy who tried to open the elevator – had already been filmed, Coudle-King said. “Now you have to be Reaction to her.”

The lesson is: “Keep the editing in mind when you’re shooting so you get the right footage and the right performances you need,” said Kuznicki, an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker.

All students participated in the production of the films, which premiere on Sunday.

Madilyn Crump, 16, of Langdon, North Dakota, said she got the idea for a Christmas movie while listening to Christmas music to cool off on a hot day while driving to Grand Forks.

Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald

Mackenzie Brown, 16, of Grand Forks, is the videographer at the camp, which she is attending for the second summer in a row.

“It was fun and I enjoyed it last year,” she said. This year she’s doing “all the filming, camera work and lighting. … I’ve been interested in this for a long time, since seventh grade.”

Brown, who will be a sophomore in the fall, and some of the other campers have experience with SPA (Summer Performing Arts), a program run by Grand Forks Public Schools, or with Stages, a program in East Grand Forks, they said.

Brown said she “filmed the whole thing on video” for the SPA production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” earlier this summer, including certain scenes for the pre-recorded video.

At this camp, “I’m seeing what I can do … and learning different things I didn’t know before,” she said.

Of learning from Thureen, Brown said, “It was interesting to hear his story and how he got to where he is today.” His story inspired her, she said, and gave her hope that she could one day do similar work.

Maislynn Congdon, 13, of East Grand Forks, wanted to attend the camp because she “has always been interested in screenwriting,” she says, “and I thought it would be a really cool thing.”

Congdon, who will be entering seventh grade in the fall, has written a book about people trapped in a video game, she said, and “I hope to make a television series out of it one day.”

Kuznicki said: “Hopefully this (experience) changes the way kids watch movies.

“They’ll watch (films) and suddenly have more insight into the process than they would have had a few weeks ago. They’ll sit there and watch something in the theater and think: OK, I understand why this choice was made, why this has an impact.”

He continued to speculate.

“I hope one of them wins an Oscar in 10 years,” he said. “I hope they all live out their dreams, but I hope this somehow represents the class that I wish I had when I was, you know, 12.”