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We recently sat down with Lance Godard, one of the Heights Middle School Shorts Co-Founders, about the formation of HMSS, the three top skills that campers need, and more.

Who are you and why did you co-found a film camp?

Among other things, I’m a Cleveland Heights parent who’s been involved for a long time in efforts to give our CHUH students creative opportunities to learn and have fun. We started by providing after-school programming to RoxEl students, which led to us getting scholarships for a few students to attend University Circle’s summer camp. We then had an opportunity to start Heights Performing Arts Camp with Ensemble Theatre, a free three-week summer camp where campers would create theater productions: they would write plays, then act in and direct them.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we were forced to move Heights Performing Arts Camp to a virtual format where the campers made movies instead of plays to tell their stories. That worked out really well, so we decided to go all-in on films, and created Heights Middle School Shorts. The first year went great – I’d recommend everyone reading this watch the films made in 2021 – so we knew we were on to something.

What are the three essential characteristics of a successful HMSS filmmaker?

I think the three most important qualities of a successful camper at HMSS are creativity, resourcefulness, and patience. Creativity is necessary to come up with a story to tell in the first place, and to write dialogues and block out scenes that can be turned into an interesting film. Resourcefulness, because a lot of the time the campers have to find ways to make their scenes work with the things they’ve got: the props, the locations, the actors, etc. I was very impressed last year to see how our campers were able to convey ideas and feelings and moods with the very limited resources they had.