Summer is a time where a child’s creativity can flourish—textbooks and worksheets are set aside and replaced with hobbies and leisurely activities. When you are a kid during the summer time, you are staying up late, sleeping in, and occupying those dog days with things that you love to do the most.

Kid Flix Video Camp, a Placerita Jr. High day camp, just recently celebrated their 10^th anniversary as a 2-week day camp for junior high school students. The camp has proved to be every techies dream with 14 days of hands on activities that deal with camera and computer equipment.

Week one is held at Placerita Jr. High where kids take part in Camera Scavenger Hunts, iMovie training, Garage Band, commercials, Music Videos and team building activities.

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Week two takes the camp goers to the SCVTV studio where they learn hands on training about Final Cut Express, how to be an anchor, how to create a broadcasting website using iWeb, creating a PSA, and producing a game show for the community access channel.

All students who participate in the camp are divided into three different groups.

The game show serves as a friendly competition amongst the three groups of campers. The show that they themselves participate in and produce for SCVTV is called The Placerita Challenge and includes a round of 30 trivia questions.

For most campers, this is the crème de la crème of the whole experience.

“It’s the neatest thing for them to say ‘I did something for television, I was on television’,” said Paul Kass, Kid Flix executive camp director and math teacher at Placerita Jr. High.

The camp was designed nearly 16 years ago to be a place where students can participate in a group environment and let their drive to learn flow naturally. They are given the opportunity to not only learn about science and technology but also learn about the importance of working in groups and having leadership skills.

And if nothing else, this camp gives the kids something to do over summer.

“We are training them to get ready for the school year and we are giving them something different to do over summer.,” said Kass. “Not every student is sports oriented.”

Kid Flix is an affiliate of Student Television Network where they participate in yearly competitions. Within the last year, Kid Flix has won first place in commercial production at the STN Convention and second place in PSA production at fall nationals.

Kass also directs a Lego Robotics camp.

With the Kid Flix camp coming to a close, most campers could universally agree that learning the skills they did was the greatest part of their experience.

“I like learning all the different stuff like control room audio, board technical director, and using Final Cut Pro,” said Jordan Dowler, eighth grade student at Placerita Jr. High.

“This is something I’m interested in and I want to do in the future,” said Terry Wolf, also an eighth grade student.

Kass’ passion lies in the feeling he gets when he observes the campers at work.

“I love to see the light bulb go on and the smile on their face that shows them that they can do anything they set their mind to,” said Kass.