CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Wearing a black baseball cap, Madison White sat perfectly still on a recent Friday afternoon as Grace Czarny gently dabbed dark make-up on her chin, creating the illusion that she has facial hair.
The 11-year-old Madison White has her hair done by make-up artist Grace Czarny. (Patrick Cooley, cleveland.com)Czarny, a make-up artist, wanted to make the 11 year-old Madison look more like acclaimed director Spike Lee as part of a campaign to promote the second Kids Film It Festival, a filmmaking competition for children.
Last year's festival took place Nov. 5 at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. A venue and date for this year's fest has yet to be set. But preparations for the competition are under way.
In addition to the nine general prizes awarded in the festival - three age groups competing in three film categories - this year there will be three People's Choice awards decided by votes cast on cleveland.com.
Four of this year's participants dressed up like famous directors for a promotional push organized in part by Cleveland-based Stern Advertising, which is offering its creative services for free.
Madison knows Spike Lee from TV commercials and said she was happy to have the chance to portray him.
"He seems like an exciting person," she said.
To help draw attention to second Kids Film It Festival, the Cleveland-based Stern Advertising helped secure a local photo studio and several make-up artists who made four of this year's participants look like iconic directors.
Oliver Polatz, 10, of Shaker Heights wore a grey beard and had his hair dyed to resemble "Star Wars" creator George Lucas during a photo shoot at Keith Berr Productions' studio in downtown Cleveland on a recent Friday. He sported a toy light saber during the shoot, standing against a white background as a director instructed him to take different poses reminiscent of famous pictures the legendary filmmaker has appeared in.
Kids Film It is the brainchild of Hawken School eighth-grader Ryan Levine, whose grandmother has Parkinson's Disease. Last year's festival drew more than 60 entries from children from all over the United States. In lieu of an entry fee or admission to the festival, filmmakers and moviegoers are asked for donations to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, which sent a representative to the 2016 event at the Rock Hall.
Hoping to expand this year's festival, Ryan approached Stern Advertising for help.
Ryan, who used last year's festival to raise more than $32,000, pitched the idea to a room full of Stern employees in a scene that resembled the investment-themed reality show "Shark Tank," Ryan's mother Lisa Levine said.
The agency has an annual initiative they call "Stern Serves" in which they take on a service project and offer their services pro bono, said Steve Romanenghi, the firm's executive vice president and executive creative director. Ryan successfully convinced them take him on as their client this year.
While the hawkish "Shark Tank" investors spend much of their time grilling the business owners who appear on their show, Lisa Levine said Stern couldn't have been more eager to hear about Ryan's annual venture.
"Ryan's enthusiasm was off the charts," Romanenghi added.
It didn't hurt that some of Stern's executives already knew about the festival thanks to Cleveland.com's coverage of last year's contest.
The advertising firm agreed to help promote the festival, organizing the photo shoot in which several participants dressed up like famous filmmakers.
"We were thinking of directors who would be recognizable to most people," Romanenghi said.
They ultimately settled on Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Spike Lee.
This year's festival will be similar to last year's event, in which children between 8 and 18 years old entered films into three categories: short film, animation and music video. The age groups are 8-11; 12-14; and 15-18.
The films can be up to five minutes long.
Videos will be judged by a panel of film industry insiders - Todd Lieberman, Hawken grad and recent producer of "Beauty and the Beast," Marc Buckland, Orange grad and Emmy award winning producer and director and Ivan Schwarz, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission.
Visitors to cleveland.com will also have a chance to decide the winners of the People's Choice Awards. Young filmmakers can opt to have their work considered for the People's Choice Award. Submissions will then be narrowed down to the group that voters can choose from.
http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/07/local_kids_film_festival_prepa.html
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