An Airdrie film company has earned a spot at the sixth annual San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, to take place Oct. 25-30.
Father and son team Greg and Dallas Lammiman created the business, MovieMakers, and had two films accepted into the semi-finals at the film festival.
“It is very exciting,” said Dallas, 23. “The film festival means a lot…they have a very high bar and we have wanted to have a film in that festival for a very long time.”
Entrusted With Arrows: Entrepreneurial Homeschool is a documentary featuring dads who both work and teach from home. Subitize Me is an educational film geared at teaching math to primary school children. Both films are eligible to win several awards including the $101,000 grand prize at the San Antonio event.
The film festival will also offer the opportunity for networking and marketing to the family’s target audience, along with the chance to take in classes and keynote speakers such as actor Kirk Cameron and director Alex Kendrick, said Dallas.
Although Dallas co-founded MovieMakers in 2006 with Greg, his love of film goes back much further. He created film projects for his home school courses and later spent a summer behind the camera during a family cross-Canada trip.
But it was while watching Spy Kids 2 director Robert Rodriguez in a commentary that Dallas fell in love with the medium.
“I thought, ‘I can do this,’” said Dallas. “At that point I had kind of decided on a career.”
Dallas had early success with a top 12 finish in the youth category of the National Screen Institute’s Canada-wide film fest held in Winnipeg for his Pinata Film, created in 2005.
After graduating from high school five years ago, Dallas decided against attending film school due to some advice he received from industry veterans.
“You are learning in an artificial environment that doesn’t (foster) creativity,” said Dallas. “It (film school) can totally destroy your ability to be creative. In a lot of ways having a film business is better than (attending) post secondary, because you are learning everything…on the job, instead of in the classroom. It is cheaper and it just makes sense.”
According to Dallas, the film industry is ideal for problem solvers and a self-learners, which are characteristics that were fostered in him during his 12 years of homeschooling.
His unique education also gave him the freedom to pursue his passion during his teens.
Dallas and Greg are equipped to write scripts, edit film, direct, create computer graphics and edit for sound, and they do it with minimal equipment.
Their makeshift studio is generally set up in a portion of their unfinished basement, and they use local actors to create their films.
You can do a lot with a little, said Dallas, who also teaches film classes to local homeschooled children.
The business also involves other family members. Son Dustin created and maintains the website, son Travis does the art for the DVD covers and discs, daughter Shalayne takes care of the shipping and handling, wife and mother Shauna helps write scripts and narrate and the younger kids, Lisa and Adam, pitch in by holding microphones and entertaining actors during filming breaks.
Although the business doesn’t fully support the family, Greg is pleased with its success.
“We aren’t making a living at it yet, but we are making a profit, despite the recession,” said Greg, adding that it has always been his goal to work from home.
When offering advice to budding entrepreneurs, Greg said some good advice they got was to do something they knew.
“We know film and we know education,” said Greg, “So we put the two together.”
The result is an award-winning company with five major projects under their belt and a bright future.
