Movies, Monsters & Mirrors

I had this idea for last year, but ran out of time to set up and put everything in place before the year was out, so it had to go on the back burner. I had also done this once many years ago with my bible school group, but it was more informal and impromptu (less scripted). The goal of Movies, Monsters & Mirrors is that students will learn how to work in a collaborative process to make a film. They will experience screenwriting and developing their own ideas for showcasing their work. We will incorporate as many of the educational areas as we can to make this work. (Reading, writing, Art, Math and Social Studies).
They will practice/increase their reading and writing skills through the script development process (logically sequencing and ordering, brainstorming, drafting, prewriting, editing and publishing. Students would learn the importance of following a schedule and sharpening recall of information. They will learn terminology related to the film making business, such as what it means to be a producer, gaffer, etc. They will also learn the in's and outs of this nontraditional career. The purpose is to increase literacy and spark interest at the same time.
The second phase of the process will be the use of arts to develop the story boards, help design the costumes and sets for the film after it has been written, edited, and finally greenlighted for production.
Next, students will use their math skills when we raise funds via the community for their film and we set up a budget and decide how the funds will be spent. They will experience or look at a real film budget and how it is appropriated and we will do some math problems related to this, such as the basic computations as well as percentages.
Finally, looking at the social studies aspect of the film. Students will have to assess the impact the film might have on audiences. Is it politically correct, does it incorporate positive or negative messages, fact versus fiction, who is your audience, would this film do well with a focus group, what is the market niche for the film?
In order to do this project, we would need a good 8mm quality camera and equipment or the next best equivalent. Access to software for making the titles and adding music scores or any necessary animation. Word processing ability, so that students can type and submit a finished script for greenlighting. Spreadsheets to do the call list and budget for the film.