Get ready for a quirky, wonderful look at the “less famous” sharks of the world, in a video made by the students in our Shark Week class at Portland Saturday Academy, Summer 2011. We spent the entire week studying sharks, as well as looking at how the media portrays sharks in different films. We watched our own children’s film about sharks called The Shark Riddle, as well as the short clips from the Save Our Seas Foundation called Rethink the Shark, and a film from Living Ocean Productions called Requiem. We did lots of activities from The Shark Packet of educational materials that I designed – from shark hats to shark scientific inquiry to shark bingo.

Then the students needed to come up with their own “public service announcement” about sharks. The “less famous” shark idea was suggested by a student who was reading the Collins Field Guide to Sharks of the World. Another student brought a shark costume from home, and the school already had a boat in its garden. The students spent a day making props – they were each responsible for drawing three different “lesser-known” sharks. The class divided other prop building needs, from making boat oars to the shark mural to the shark fins (as featured in Landshark Lawn Ornaments in The Shark Packet).

When we filmed this short little masterpiece, the students shared jobs on the film crew. We definitely had some challenges, since the boat was in the middle of a playground, with ambient kid sounds all around us. We had to wait for preschool classes to run by, a lacrosse practice to slow down, a basketball camp to take a break from bouncing balls . . . but eventually we were able to record a few good lines.

I am so, so very proud of all the students in our class this week! Their enthusiasm about sharks is certainly hard to ignore. I wholeheartedly agree that SHARKS ARE AWESOME.

One of the week’s highlights was creating our own class story. The kids recorded sound effects to fill in the story – and you will see they had some creative ideas.

Get ready to hear loon calls, alligator growls, porcupine grunts, chickadee calls, a barred owl call, a bullfrog call and more. And if you know us at Sisbro, we believe in happy endings, so you won’t go away disappointed. Enjoy listening to Prince Arthur’s Dragon Forest Adventure.

Wild Shorts is a new series of wildlife shorts by us at Sisbro Studios.  Basically we just thought it would be fun to post a short animal-related clip each week, along with some facts about that animal. In our first installment, The Snowman Thief, a very clever pine marten (a member of the weasel family) shows its skills as a thief after meeting a snowman.  This footage was shot by Carl Sams while filming for the wildlife movie First Snow in the Woods.  Pine martens live mostly in the northern regions of North America, and are usually active when the sun is low or after dark. Pine martens are very good hunters and are so curious that you can lure one out of its den by making a series of mouse-like squeaks.

The juvenile pileated woodpeckers were filmed at Kensington Metro Park in Michigan. My brother felt very lucky to spend a couple hours filming them, since they are often shy and quick to fly from tree to tree. My grandmother loves pileated woodpeckers, and she didn’t see one in Michigan until several years ago, so we consider ourselves fortunate filmmakers!

In 1972, a gentleman and widower named Vern spotted a lovely lady sitting in the back row of his church in Trenton, Michigan.  He asked the minister about her and learned that she was “Mrs. Sams,” that her husband Oscar had died, and that she had two boys in college.  The minister spoke highly of her, so Vern decided he would look up her phone number in the church directory and ask her on a date.  (I recently discovered from some elders in this church that the back row was traditionally the place for single ladies – so beware of your seating choices in church. . .).

Also in 1972, my parents got married and were living with my dad’s mom — the “Mrs. Sams” who sat in the back row of the church.  My mom was a newlywed, and she was getting used to her new last name of Sams.

Vern called the number from the church directory, and my mom answered the phone.

“May I speak to Mrs. Sams?” Vern asked politely.

“This is she,” my mom replied.

Then Vern proceeded to ask my mom out on a date.  My mom listened and finally said, “I think you want the other Mrs. Sams.”  And that is how my grandparents met.

My Grandma Max and Grandpa Vern were married for 36 years, and I have been thinking a lot about them lately, specifically about how they kept amazing senses of humor in the face of very serious circumstances.

The funniest I ever remember my Grandpa Vern being . . . was in the waiting room of an emergency room.  One evening many years ago on Thanksgiving, my Grandma Max was having trouble breathing, which quickly progressed to not being able to breathe at all.  The paramedics came and whisked her away to the hospital down river, and I took my Grandpa Vern to the hospital, where we sat in the waiting room, with all the other worried and weary folks who sit in emergency rooms in the middle of the night.  I, myself, was sitting quietly, hoping and also dreading the moment that someone came to tell us whether she lived or died.  (She did live on this night, by the way).

Suddenly my Grandpa Vern started telling jokes . . . jokes about farmers and boys falling down wells.  Jokes about stray dogs.  Jokes about kids at church.  And the entire waiting room was laughing,  hilariously.  My Grandpa Vern just kept telling jokes, and he allowed us (about 15 people in all) in the waiting room to laugh and bond and forget for a little while, just for a little while, the situation we were in.  It was the funniest I ever saw him.  In the face of a terrible situation, he got funnier.  It was an amazing moment to witness.

A few years after that, my Grandma Max found out she had breast cancer (she lived through that too, by the way).  She had a mastectomy, and while she was healing, she wrote a song called “Lopsided Lady, You’re Not All There For Me.”  It was hilarious and, of course, a brilliant way to deal with a frustrating situation.

There are some very serious issues facing our world right now, from the economy to the state of the environment.  As my grandparents used grace and humor as a coping mechanism, I have made a conscious choice to use humor in our own movies and books.  I write stories for children that give them a chance to laugh.  I also make a conscious choice to write humor that adults can enjoy with children, because if families are laughing together, the laughter is even more powerful.  It gives families a needed reprieve from the serious and often stifling realities of the immense issues we all face in our day to day lives.

I am lucky to come from a family that appreciates humor, and much of that comes from my grandparents.  I am certainly happy that Vern persevered to take “the other Mrs. Sams” out on a date all those years ago.