Artist, Painter, Director, Filmmaker…Dad

“We” had known about this project since the beginning of the school year. You can see where I am going with this by starting off with “we.” In all reality my daughter, Mia, had a project assigned to her at the beginning of the year. Daughter like father, she waited until the last minute to start and complete the project.

The project: visit a historical landmark in Pennsylvania and write a report which consists of one paragraph at least four sentences in each paragraph, 12pt type, double-spaced…blah blah blah. You must also do an oral presentation, present a slide show, or do a video. This is where I come in and take over, I mean, help out with creative input.

Armed with my iphone 4 with high def video capabilities, we visit the Brandywine Battlefield. But before we go I assign the tasks. First daughter in charge of beverage and snacks for the main actress, son in charge of props, guns and little army dudes, mom limo service to and from film site, and me filming, directing and creative process. Daughter actually doing the project in charge of script, acting out all scenes and allowing me to do my job.

Now I must comment my daughter has a great sense of humor and wrote out a wonderful script; A story about a blue team, us as she refers to them, and a red team meeting on a field in the Brandywine Valley. She stated all the facts, used all her props, and hit all her marks. I transferred all the video takes onto the computer and now face the daunting task of editing and figuring out imovie. It is like giving a six-year-old girl a bedazzler, everything is going to be shiny and sparkle. I’ll work on the editing between my other projects and at night just in time for “our” deadline.

As I worked on this project I thought about how I want my kids to do their best, and how I can do my best, and most of all how we all have different talents and nothing really gets accomplished by one person’s efforts. I am hoping my daughter’s efforts get me an “A” or I’m going to have to schedule a parent teacher conference and let the teacher know how hard my daughter worked for me.