Our camps will help your child learn and develop writing and interviewing skills to help "get the story" with visits to the SF Giants dugout, the San Francisco mayor’s office, Infineon Raceway, Lucasfilm, Pixar, and more! Students will assemble and create stories for our FastForward print ’zine and website. Photography, broadcast journalism, and creating interactive slide shows are all included in our project-based fun camp. Kids who have attended FastForward’s Adventure Reporters Program have the rocking journalism skills to ace an important interview. That’s why they have first priority in getting our big interviews. Plus there’s that whole "really fun and awesome" factor... so Sign up today!
AGES: Entering 5th-12th grade
WHERE: San Rafael, at Intel Computer Clubhouse
WHEN: Seven 1-week sessions, M-F 9am-3pm (arrive early or stay later for no extra fee): June 13-17, June 20-24, June 27-July 1, July 11-15, July 18-22, July 25-29, and August 1-5* (see details)
COST: $595 per week, with special $100-$250 pricing for our new Creative Writing Workshop
DETAILS: Adventure Reporters Camp students learn valuable life skills and all of the ways to express themselves! Students conduct four interviews per week, developing writing skills, techniques for conducting interviews, and how "listening to someone else" can change their life. In Session 6 (Broadcast Journalism), students learn how to produce a television show with state-of-the-art broadcast hardware and create a 30-minute show for public access TV! Classes are limited to 22 students per week.
**NEW THIS YEAR! Get Ready to Write Your Own Book Workshop - Session 7: Ages 10-17; August 1-5, 10:00am-2:00pm. This is a Creative Writing Workshop with noted author L.B. Schulman and other guest authors. Learn the secrets that authors know! In this week-long creative writing workshop, you will take away tips and skills to help you jumpstart your own book. We’ll discover how to create a plot with memorable characters, write natural dialogue, select the right words, and paint vivid descriptions. You will come away with the tools you need to write the book of your dreams.
Cost is $250 for new students. $100 for those attending a week of FastForward. Note: an application with writing sample is required. Ebroll early as space limited.If interested in enrolling, please DOWNLOAD a copy of the registration form as well as our Health Information Form.CONTACT: Send email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 415-272-3569 for further information.
A story from a FastForward Adventure Reporter
By Connor McGuigan, Branson School, Senior
Most journalists operate outside of the spotlight, getting little attention as they surround themselves with those that get the most attention. Boy, was that not the case in middle school. Around every first of the month I was met by choruses of, "You met (insert celebrity name here)?!" and "I saw you on the cover of a magazine!" before I could sit down in Homeroom. I got used to these deluges after about a year, but I’d be lying if I said the celebrity treatment got old.
The prospect of these moments was what originally attracted me to FastForward magazine. The cover of the first issue I saw had a group of eager kids with reporters’ notebooks surrounding Chris Rock under the tagline, "For kids, by kids." That was enough to sell me, so I signed up for their summer journalism program for budding journalists.
On my first day they armed us with the basic tools of the trade: how to write an article, how to frame questions, how to conduct interviews etc. The next day we were on the job. A little research on the company, questions in our notebooks and off we went to Pixar studios. My reporter’s notebook from that day reads, "The guy who made Monsters Inc!!!" and innovative thoughts like "successful failure — what have I learned here? What can I do next?, lone artists working as a team to create films we love" interspersed with doodles of Nemo. Though I may have not been armed with the qualitative substance to write a brilliant expositional piece on the inner-workings of one of America’s most successful animation studios, I walked out of Pixar with one of the most memorable experiences of my life under my belt.
As I got older and became more passionate about writing, the draw of FastForward became less about the thrill and more about the intellectual experience.
At FastForward, I learned how to find the middle ground between this intellectual side of a subject and its thrill, and how to communicate it. It’s a tool I use every day in my academic life, as I have to articulate points about subjects I am passionate about. It’s a tool I still use as a journalist, working as a mentor-counselor at FastForward and guiding kids through the same process I went through years ago. But still, when I go Go-Karting with the campers (for a story of course), and I start gunning my engine to 55 MPH and cutting corners to pass them, I’m having more fun than anyone else on that track. I’m an intellectual creature at heart, but thanks to FastForward I never lose track of the kid in me.