7 August 2008
Eagle Scout, Filmmaker Michael Moore Talks Cinematography
Posted by admin under: Community Partners; camps .
Michael Moore, Eagle Scout
Carol South reporting for the Traverse City Record-Eagle shares the news that Michael Moore, controversial and Academy Award winning filmmaker, gave back to his community by attending a Boy Scout camp in Michigan to discuss cinematography. The cinematography merit badge is not generally earned, even in this day of ready access to video cameras, but it is one of the options available to Boy Scouts. Carol notes that Michigan’s Camp Greilick is unique in that it provides courses in the technology-based merit badge courses, including cinematography. During their summer camp, Boy Scouts had an opportunity to visit with Michael Moore.
Leading off with a biographical sketch, Moore delved into his filmmaking history that began with his Eagle Scout project in 1970.
The high school sophomore photographed polluted areas around his hometown of Davison. Moore compiled the images into a slideshow, set it to music and showed it to groups around town, including churches, schools and service organizations.
“A number of clubs and groups decided to take some action to clean up the creek and the roadsides and to start writing letters,” said Moore, noting that this initial filmmaking effort taught him things he uses today. “It was probably the first film I ever made — a music video long before there was MTV.”
If you’re trying to figure out how a big lib like Michael Moore could possibly be seen in the presence of what most people think of as the conservative Boy Scouts of America, you’ll have to check your preconceptions at the door. The Boy Scouts of America is non-political and while many people might think of particular policies as liberal or conservative, everyone agrees that a basic principle of the BSA and America in general is recognizing that we have an obligation to help our fellow citizens. The BSA believes this so strongly they have three required merit badges for the subject: citizenship in the community, citizenship in the nation, and citizenship in the world. You can’t be an Eagle Scout without them.
How you do it is unique to the Boy Scout in question and that’s what takes the advice of Scouters.
Young Michael Moore
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