Warning!! If you get grossed out easily, STAY HOME! This workshop is for horror film buffs. Learn to spew green alien slime that you make yourself. Learn 3 simple recipes for blood and how to make your own hologram on film. Learn the SAFE way to pull off someone's arm. Includes workbook. Ages 10-18.

Tickets for "Aliens Ate My Head" ($5) will be available at Ninth St. Video, 123 S. Ninth St. in Columbia.

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Join us for a taste of the wild world of Documentary films. We will watch clips from our favorite documentary films and discuss the film maker's storytelling technique. Learn about teenage Amish troublemakers, how to keep the lights on in Tbilisi, and visit other strange worlds through the eyes of today's top documentary film makers.

Tickets for "Docs that Rock" (free) will be available at Ninth St. Video, 123 S. Ninth St. in Columbia.

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This 3-hour intensive workshop is designed for teens with a burning desire to tell stories through the media of documentary film. This workshop is hands-on and will be limited to 15 students. The class will discuss finding stories and telling them to the world in a form that won't put everyone to sleep. We will cover documentary research, camera techniques, lighting, and sound. We will share our top-secret techniques for begging for money, begging bigwigs for interviews, and begging Mom for equipment. Includes workbook.

Contact Christy LeMaster to reserve tickets (free) in the "DocShop" workshop. Her number is (573)875-6590.

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By Caren Goldman, Spirituality & Health
Spring 2000

Eleven-year-old Chaille (pronounced Shall-ee) Stovall says he "freaked out" when he heard a televangelist shout, "You're all going to hell if you don't believe in Jesus Christ." The boy recalls, "I went screaming, 'Mom, is this true?' I have Orthodox Jewish friends and there's a Muslim boy at school. I was scared. I wanted to know what would happen to them."

Colleen Stovall challenged him to find out what he thought was true. So Chaille, who had attended filmmaking classes at the Miami Children's Museum and made an award-winning documentary when he was eight, got his old JVC camcorder out of the closet.

Charged with his mission, 4'4" Chaille researched, arranged interviews, wrote, directed 10-year-old cameraman Konstantin Bauta, narrated, and edited Looking For God, a 15-minute montage of what representatives of different religions believe is "the way." It explores the way the intrepid fifth-grader learns that the search for God is about a journey, not a destination.

Mrs. Stovall says moviemaking is a form of therapy for Chaille, who has Attention Deficit Disorder. It motivates him to stay focused and complete tasks. For example, it took him almost a year to land an interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama durina the Tibetan Buddhist leader's 1999 visit to Indianapolis. Then there was the day he marched into a crowded meeting room and announced he just had to talk to the great civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Mrs. Stovall recalls, "Rev. Jackson stopped everything, hugged Chaille, and discussed peace, love, and tolerance with him."

Other highlights of the film include a Shabbat meal Chaille shares with the Orthodox Jewish triplets he feared were doomed. In another scene he visits a Hare Krishna village. "When he watched the Hare Krishnas dancing in the street, he saw other people laughing and he began to giggle," says Mrs. Stovall. "But when he went to their temple, he discovered how truly devout they were, and it broadened his whole perspective."

So what did Chaille, who is being raised in a secular household by parents who believe in God but do not feel connected to their Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist roots, learn from making the movie? "I used to think God was all about angels and being good and having a halo over your head," he reflects. "Now I know it's a mystery. God is something out there not revealing itself and what's important is having a belief — your own tradition — and tolerance and respect for others."

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