Make Movies — A 12-Week Guide to Making Short Films With an AI Tutor.

Turn a phone in a drawer into a movie set. This is a done-for-you, 12-week plan for guiding a 10–14-year-old from a shaky 10-second test shot to a real short film they premiere to the family — an actual story, real shots, and a simple edit — using an AI tutor that coaches like a director while you do the leading. You do not need any filmmaking experience.

What you get

• A "Never used an AI chat assistant? Start here" onboarding that takes a complete beginner from zero to ready in about five minutes — no paid plan needed, any free AI assistant works — plus a parent/teacher orientation on why the adult stays the leader and the AI is the tutor, and exactly what your one hour a week looks like.
• Four rescue prompts in the front matter for the moments every guide hits: the learner is frustrated, bored, stuck, or the AI's reply misses the mark.
• 12 deep weekly sessions, each built to run in about 60 minutes and fully scripted: a plain-language concept, a concrete worked example, a minute-by-minute session plan, the exact AI-tutor prompt to copy and paste at every step, a "show me" checkpoint so you always know it landed, common mistakes to watch for, and practice to lock it in. No filmmaking expertise needed — every step is written for you.
• An AI-tutor prompt playbook — the Socratic starter prompts that have the tutor coach from the learner's own idea and footage (never write the script or plan the shots for them), and a guardrail that keeps the tutor asking instead of directing the scene itself.

The 12 weeks

1. A Movie Tells a Story — a first test shot with a real camera (the phone)
2. The Idea and a Simple Script — a logline and a beginner shot list
3. Shots and Angles — wide, medium, and close-up, on purpose
4. Filming Steadily and With Light
5. Sound Matters — clean dialogue without expensive gear
6. Acting and Directing — giving notes, calling for another take
7. Editing on a Phone — trim, reorder, cut on action
8. Music and Titles
9. A Full Scene, Start to Finish — the whole pipeline in miniature
10. Project Week I: Plan It (script, shot list, actors, locations)
11. Project Week II: Shoot and Edit It
12. Premiere: Family Demo Day — present, reflect, choose what's next

Who it's for

Parents, teachers, and homeschoolers guiding a learner aged roughly 10–14 who wants to make something with a phone instead of just watching one. No filmmaking background needed — you lead one fully scripted ~60-minute session each week, phone in hand, with every step timed and every AI prompt already written for you.

Why this instead of a free chatbot

A raw chatbot will happily write the whole script or hand your learner a shot-for-shot plan — which teaches nothing about telling their own story. This pack ships the structure a chatbot lacks: a real 12-week arc built on how movies actually get made (a story, shots and angles, steady footage and good light, clean sound, directing real takes, editing, music and titles), a Socratic playbook that has the tutor coach like a director reviewing dailies — asking what the learner was going for before offering a note — and checkpoints that prove each skill actually landed on real footage. Curriculum + guardrails + a way to see progress. That's the difference.

FAQ

• Do I need any filmmaking experience? No. Every session is fully scripted — the concept, the worked example, the minute-by-minute plan, and the exact AI prompt are all written for you. You lead by showing up with a phone and encouragement.
• Never used an AI chat assistant before? Which one does it use? Any modern AI assistant works — ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini — and a free version of any of them is enough; no paid plan required. The guide's first section walks a complete beginner through setup in about five minutes, so you don't need to have used one before to start week 1.
• Is my child's data collected? No. This is a digital guide sold to you, the adult. There's no login and no child account — you start and supervise every AI session yourself, under your own account, including any time a clip is shared with the tutor.
• What ages? Roughly 10–14. Age-banded variants are on the roadmap.
• Refunds? Standard marketplace refund policy applies.

Get the whole track

Building out a full kids' curriculum shelf? See the full Kids Shelf bundle for a better price than buying packs one at a time.