Over their Spring break (April 2008), Ben and his friend Dylan
made a two-minute movie. In contrast with "009", which had six filming days and
countless days of editing, this movie had one filming day and just a couple of
days of editing.
Here is the movie, some stills, and some production photos.
(One of the "stills" isn't really still.)
p.s. You're encouraged to share the link to for this movie
with anyone who might find it interesting. All the Slugco.com and BenKadie.com
material is shareable.
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Sept 29, 2009: Festival do Rio in Brazil screened "A Friendly
Game". This will was Ben's first film screening with subtitles. How
did
they translate "ball wrangler" to Portuguese? According to
Matt Lawrence
of Ballard High:
The festival is the largest film festival in Brazil and Latin
America. Each year, major films of the Cannes, Sundance, Venice,
Berlin, and Australian film festivals are presented to the public
during the event. The festival also features films by youth 18 and
younger. It has a distinguished history of showcasing the early work
of young filmmakers who have gone on to successful film careers.
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June 18, 2009: "A
Friendly Game" was screened as a bonus film at the NFFTY-organized
"Five High Schools, Five Films" program of teen safety films. |
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May 26, 2009: KIDS FIRST! selects "A
Friendly Game" for their film festival of film festivals. This makes it
eligible for more 120 venues nationwide that show films selected by KIDS
FIRST! |
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Sunday double screening for 'A Friendly Game': Newport
Beach & NFFTY
On Sunday, April 25, 2009, audiences in California and
Washington will watch 'A Friendly Game'. The
Newport Beach Film
Festival in California, one of the top 20 festivals in the U.S., will
show the film at 11:30 AM. The National Film Festival for Talented Youth
(NFFTY)
will show the film at 12:45 PM in Seattle. The film premiered Seattle
last year. Newport Beach will be it's first California screening.
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April 17, 2009: Both "A Friendly Game" and "Murder at the Pharaoh's
Grave" are official selections at the
Westport Youth Film
Festival (Connecticut) in May. Ben learned of the festival from
youth filmmakers at Ballard High School in Seattle. |
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March 31, 2009: "A Friendly Game" has won a National Gold Medal from the
Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. According to Scholastic, 140,000 pieces
of art and writing were submitted and fewer than 300 won the National
Gold Medal. Ben is the only middle schooler to earn a gold medal in
"Video and Film" (and the only middle school medal winner in Washington
State). The awards have been given since 1923 and folks such as
Truman Capote and Andy Warhol were recognized as teens. There is an
ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City (but it conflicts with Ben's
8th grade trip and he may choose the 8th grade trip). The web site is
http://www.artandwriting.org/. |
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November 15, 2008: The Cucalorus Film Festival of North Carolina today
showed “A Friendly Game”. Time Magazine calls Cucalorus one of
its Film Festivals for the Rest of Us". The festival considered over
1000 films and selected 157. Click the logo to the left to see "A
Friendly Game" in the Cucalorus catalog.
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October 26, 2008: The Chicago International Children’s Film Festival (CICFF),
largest annual festival of films for children in the world, today
screened “A Friendly Game”. The film was one of 220 films selected from
over 600 submissions. The CICFF is the only Academy Award qualifying
children's film festival.
http://cicff2008.org/ |
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September 28, 2008: The Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival screened both
“009” and “A Friendly Game” as part of
their teen filmmaker program. The festival, one of TIME magazine's “Film
Festivals for the Rest of us", is a celebration of new independent
cinema in downtown Birmingham, Alabama.
Click the poster to the left to see "A Friendly Game" in the Sidewalk
on-line catalog. |
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“A Friendly
Game” wins Regional Festival
September 14, 2008: "A Friendly Game" is among the winners of the 32nd Annual Young
People’s Film & Video Festival. Students in Oregon, Washington, Idaho,
Montana, Utah and Alaska competed in the festival which the Northwest
Film Center coordinated. A jury of educators and film professionals
judged the films for their storytelling, originality, artistic merit,
technical achievement, and investigation of subject matter. Only 15
productions were chosen for the festival from over 100 entries. The
Festival Winners’ Program was screened on in the Portland Art Museum.
Click on the poster for the NW FilmCenter web site.
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Sept 14, 2008: The Chicago International REEL Shorts Fest screened
both "009"
and "A Friendly Game" at Columbia College. The festival, with
sponsors such as the “The Onion” humor magazine, seeks to showcase films
“to REEL PEOPLE in the Chicagoland area.” A still from "009"
appears of the festival’s poster. Click the poster
to the left to see the full-size poster. |
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On August 16, 2008, Ben introduced "A Friendly Game" to an enthusiastic
crowd at the Fremont
Outdoor Cinema. The film appeared before "The Iron Giant". Other
Three Minute Masterpieces will appear in coming weeks. |
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As the youth winner from the Seattle Times Three-Minute
Masterpiece digital film contest, "A Friendly Game" was invited to a
second screening at the Seattle International Film Festival. This time
as part of the FutureWave program for artists under 18. Click the
little poster for details from the afternoon including comments to the
young filmmakers by author Sherman Alexie. |

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"A Friendly Game" is the J. Michael (Youth) Award winner at
the 2008 Seattle Times Three-Minute Masterpieces screening. Of
more than 100 entries to the Seattle Times contest, eleven films
were Three-Minute Masterpieces winners, receiving a screening at the
Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) . At the very fun screening,
"A Friendly Game" won the J. Michael Award youth filmmaker award. Ben is the
first filmmaker to win the youth award twice. (He won last year with
"Perilous Skies".)
As the youth winner, Ben received a generous prize the Rima Family --
the J. Michael award is a memorial to their son.
Click the logo to see the
newspaper article announcing the Three-Minute Masterpieces on-line
availably.
Here is the Seattle Times' description:
"A Friendly Game"
The laws of physics are nothing compared with the imagination of Bellevue filmmaker
Ben Kadie, a seventh-grade student at Seattle Country Day School. Young Kadie's dazzling "A Friendly Game" is the ironic title of a tale about a tennis match that defies gravity and concludes with a ball banking furiously off trees and a few foreheads. Production stills reveal Kadie's homemade dolly (using a re-purposed skateboard) and a giant sheet of green fabric (hanging from his family's deck), against which special effects were shot. The resourceful Kadie (a winner of last year's Three-Minute Masterpiece contest as well) says he used real tennis balls during the shoot as well as an "animated, spinning tennis ball I added during editing."
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LA |
"Keep up the good videos coming!!!!" |
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Tucson |
'"Friendly Game" is terrific [...] And you've got wonderful actors.'
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Wausau, Wisconsin |
"Fun Movie and great special effects!" |
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Texas |
"Very interesting special effects! I liked it!" |
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On-line forum |
"That absolutely rocked! [...] It was amusing and just the right length;
long enough for a good laugh and a "how'd he do that?" but short enough
to keep the interest. Again, fantastically amusing and well-done video!" |
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Newcastle, WA |
"Hey, this is a great video! I really liked it and I hope you make more
great videos like this!" |
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Seattle |
"Totally Cool soooo awesome" |
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YouTube Comment: |
"This is great!" |
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Peoria, IL |
'I loved "A Friendly Game". I spent the weekend with some friends kids a
couple of weeks ago and they liked it, too.' |
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An LA Filmmaker: |
“I love that short, amazing! You’re going to have to teach me all your
special effects. Wow, that was great, a really good story mixed with
effects, great!” |
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Theatre professional, Illinois: |
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Maryland: |
"Your video short was truly delightful, and your effects and animations
are wondrous to behold! You'll be a favorite at a film festival!" |
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St. Louis: |
"Very funny short! [My daughter] won't stop bugging me to play it." |
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Unbiased star actor's grandparents: |
"That's terrific. We are waiting for the next one. What is the price of
the shares in their company - we may be interested, for several hundred
shares anyway!"
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San Francisco: |
“I liked this a lot. [I'm going to forward this to a friend] I know
she’ll laugh and laugh.” |
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Seattle: |
“Fun!” |
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(Send your unbiased, positive reviews to
info@benkadie.com.) |
The boys shoot the film on a local tennis courts. The day's
light rain, while not ideal for filming, keeps other court users away.