First, if you haven’t seen “Caine’s Arcade”, please check it out now. It’s a great story about a 9 year-old boy who had almost more creativity than he could handle, and access to a ton of cardboard boxes. So he made an arcade out of cardboard. I was personally moved by this film, partly because I used to do the same thing as a little boy (believe me, we had our share boxes in the house) and because it gives me a lot of hope for my own kids’ discovery of their creative potential.

Without saying any more, here’s “Caine’s Arcade”:

It doesn’t stop there. As it turns out, Caine’s creative spirit inspired so many people around that world that filmmaker Nirvan Mullick and crew ended up raising something like $250,000 — the money was originally Caine’s scholarship fund, but it has since led to a foundation in itself: the Imagination Foundation. These guys have taken the notion of using recycled materials in fun art projects to the next level and around the world. Here’s part two of the story (“From a Movie to a Movement”):

I was so pleased to learn that this year Saigon South International School, inspired by Caine’s Arcade, decided to be a part of the Global Cardboard Challenge! For the past several days, in recognition of Earth Week, SSIS kids in the elementary school from Early Childhood 3/4 to Grade 5 have been working on planning, building, and sharing their own recycled cardboard arcades. I’ve been lucky enough to be there all week with a camera or two catching all the action!

Teachers have been helping these students as much as they can; they introduced them to Caine’s story and asked them if they’d like to create something similar. But I’ve noticed that this is the kind of project that doesn’t require a whole lot of adult guidance. Sure, some of the little ones need extra help cutting through the thick cardboard, but when it comes to blueprinting these things out, they’re best left on their own. The projects vary in complexity and detail: the older kids have reproduced a lot of their favorite real-world arcade games (Whack-a-Mole, Angry Birds), the first- and second-graders built a soccer game and a “Monkey Toss”, and one of the preschool groups came up with a cardboard train that you can climb inside and go anywhere you please. What more could you want in an international school?

Tomorrow’s the big day. The students will put the whole arcade together in the elementary school auditorium. Kids from other classes will visit throughout the day to participate in the games. And don’t worry: the reason cardboard arcade games are better than store-bought, as one astute 1st grader told me today, is because when they break you can fix them as long as you have “lots and lots and lots of tape.”

I’m still going through all the footage, and I’ll be shooting the event tomorrow. Below is a teaser of this little micro-doc we’re putting together for the Imagination Foundation. Believe me, there will be plenty more to come on this one!

-JN