Rebellion in the ranks…
Sometimes the classroom goes quiet for the wrong reason.
Here’s what every creator, young or old, should remember when the work gets hard.
When Joe walks into the classroom, he feels the awkward quiet of a project stalled.
The iPads are dark. The scissors asleep.
The teacher gives him a strained smile. “Mr. Joe, we’ve had a situation. A few of them don’t want to keep working on their team films. They say they’d rather make their own movies, so we’ve just been waiting for you.”
Joe nods slowly, scanning the room. “Ah. A mutiny? Excellent.”
The teacher blinks. “Excellent?”
“Of course. Every real production has one. It means the crew’s thinking for themselves.” He pauses. “Totally normal."
A flicker of nervous laughter moves through the class.
Joe moves to the center of the room. “Let me guess. A few of you think you’d do better without the group. You’d make something funnier, cooler, or more you, if you could just go solo.”
A few guilty smiles. Some brave eyes meet his.
“Good,” Joe says. “That means you care. It means you’ve got ideas burning holes in your head.
But here’s the secret no one tells you. That impulse, that urge to do it alone, happens to every creative person in the world. But if you want to be great, you don’t feed it. You wrestle it. You stay in the room.
So no mutiny while I'm here." Joe asserts with a very serious voice.
He picks up a marker and draws a big iceberg on the whiteboard. “Behold an iceberg. Up here, above the water line, that’s what people see. The red carpet, the views, the fame, the "influence.
Down here below the waterline is what makes up most of the iceberg: the editors, writers, sound techs, producers, coders, teachers, friends. The late nights. The do-overs. The non-creatives. The people who don’t get credit.”
He writes in all these titles as he speaks. “There are no solo filmmakers. Not on Tiktok or Youtube. Not in Hollywood. Not in this classroom.”
Joe looks squarely at the pirates. “MrBeast, the Ninja Kidz, Ryan Kaji from Ryan’s World. I know what kind of crews they run, the hours they work, the armies behind every upload. The editing teams, lighting techs, thumbnail artists, and analytics geeks who keep their channels alive. Even your favorite influencers—the ones who seem like they’re doing it all solo—are swimming with the same iceberg. None of them make it alone either.”
He turns toward the silent bins. “You’ve built something together. Bowling Ball, Turtle, Rocket, Diaper Texting. Four stories that matter. Courage. Family. Consequence. Responsibility. You invented those stories together.
Right now, you’re at the point every real team hits. The middle. The part where it stops feeling fun and starts feeling lame and impossible.
You’ve seen your story a thousand times and you are not sure it is funny or meaningful anymore.
You are what we call "out in the weeds". You are so busy figuring out the timing, the spacing, the animation, engineering the props, that you lose the big picture.
That’s when people start to drift. That’s when the mutiny starts.”
He steps closer to the front row. “I’ve seen this a thousand times. On sets. In studios. In boardrooms."
Joe takes a deep breath. "Okay, it is time to name drop. I've been the media business for 30 years. Please take me seriously for a moment.
Spielberg’s seen what we are doing here. You know him? The guy who did Jaws, Jurassic World, Indiana Jones?
A few years ago he was visiting an organization that was running this program. He loved it so much he joined their board of directors. What he loved most is that it drags you guys through every role, every job, and explodes the illusion that making meaning with sound and motion is easy.
George Lucas of Star Wars fame has screened one of our movies, just like the ones you are making. He didn’t believe kids did it. He too knows how hard this is. How easy it is to quit. We convinced him otherwise, but he really was skeptical kids could pull this process off.”
He looks around the room, voice steady. “Look, I've spoken to the smartest creative people in governments and universities. NYU, USC, SXSW, Tribeca, in Rwanda and Doha: to sheiks, producers, and billionaires. Do you know what I talk about?
I talk about You." Joe points to the class.
"And the thousands that have come before you. I brag about you,” he says, leaning on a desk. “You’re making positive media, something with a story. A point of view, as a team. Not viral fluff. Not AI slop pretending to be art. Real stories that come from the heart whle learning to trust each other. That’s a miracle. And yes, it’s messy. But it’s the kind of mess the world needs more of.”
He looks directly at the mutineers. “You wanted to make your own movies because you thought you’d lost control. I get it. That happens to the best. But the truth is, no one ever has full control. Not even the geniuses.
Art is compromise in motion. The trick is to make peace with that and still make something great.”
He paces again, voice tightening with energy. “The middle of a project always looks like failure. That’s the price of doing anything real. The professionals feel it too. I’ve seen it on studio lots and ad campaigns and big brand shoots where egos could fill a stadium. It’s always the same. The people who succeed aren’t the ones who never doubt. They’re the ones who finish.”
He stops and gestures at the bins. "Bowling Ball has a heart that won’t quit. Turtle moves slow but it moves through tragedy toward love. Rocket burns hot but learns humility. Diaper Texting is a PSA wrapped in laughter. These stories work. They’re honest. They matter. They’re worth finishing.”
He glances toward the teacher. She’s smiling now, just watching him work.
Joe lowers his voice. “I don’t come here because I need a hobby. I have a career in the real world. I make campaigns that win awards and projects that reach millions. But this room—this is where the hope is. Because here, you’re still learning the most important lesson in creativity: how to be a team.”
He looks at the mutineers again. “Every team fractures. Every group hits the wall. What matters is what you do next. You come back. You forgive each other. You finish what you started.”
He takes a breath, steady but fierce. “You’ve already done the brave part. You showed up. Now do the real part. Stay.”
“I’ve been lucky,” Joe says. “I’ve watched old school influencers like Robert De Niro change a scene when the director insisted, just by breathing differently. I’ve talked musical timing with Wynton Marsalis and Herbie Hancock, talked stop motion with Tim Burton, and swapped story notes with Jim Henson’s Muppet crew.”
He smiles. “I’ve crossed paths with, I don't know, hundreds of big celebrities. Off the top of my head, and these names mean nothing to you, but maybe to your teacher: Kevin Kline, Stanley Tucci, Debra Winger, Idina Menzel, Stephen King, even Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank. I’ve heard Albie Hecht, the guy who discovered SpongeBob, tell the story about discovering the green goo for Nickleodeon. I’ve seen Jeff Bridges, Clint Eastwood, and Justin Beiber talk about turning chaos into art. Giants, all of them. And every single one, the same thing, working with huge teams in a different way. None of it happens alone.”
The Animation Chefs, my sons, wanted to quit a hundred of times. Each “Secret Recipe” episode you see took hours of filming, editing, and posting for every single finished minute of content We worked nights and weekends for years just to make five episodes.
And Animating Kids? That took four years. Snow days. Weekends. Holidays. It never interfered with their school work, so we spaced it out. They even did a crowd funding campaign. We also had to build the website, code the purchasing system, design the graphics, upload, and manage the advertising and marketing. The whole kitchen sink.
And yes, I made the Chefs do most of it. I wanted them to live through the trenches, not just making the art, but getting it out there, finding an audience, and showing up for that audience with their best work.
So I’ve seen mutiny before. In classrooms and in my own house. I love my kids, and I always backed off when they were in over their heads. But I also knew the only way through was through. They learned that and are patient with the process as a result.
I love you all too! Only I’m in this classroom a couple of hours a week for a few months. It’s time to own this project again. The mutiny is over.”
No one moves.
Then one of the mutineers exhales, stands, and walks to the Rocket bin. Another follows. Soon the sound spreads: baggies unzipping, paper props rustling, scissors clicking open.
Joe nods once. “Good. That’s what courage sounds and walks like.”
He moves between desks, helping realign iPads and tripods, resetting focus. “One frame at a time. Patience is your superpower.”
The classroom hums again. Tape tears. Paper moves. Voices overlap, not in argument but in rhythm. The teacher folds her arms and lets the sound wash over her.
Joe stands at the front, watching it all. “Look at this,” he says. “A few minutes ago, we were divided. Now we’re a studio again. This is what every real production looks like halfway through. Chaos up top, miracles underneath. You’re the ones keeping it afloat.”
He turns to the iceberg drawing. “When these films are finished and your names scroll across the screen, remember this moment. The day you came back together. The day you learned that creative tension isn’t doom or the end, it’s the spark.”
He lets the moment hang. “This is something AI can’t even do. AI can make pictures. It can mimic. But it can’t make this. The sound of people figuring each other out. The laughter after an argument. The trust rebuilt after a bail. That’s the real art.”
Joe stands by the door, listening to the rhythm of scissors, whispers, and small laughter. The sound of kids forgiving each other, finding their rhythm, building something that didn’t exist before.
He smiles. “This,” he says softly, “is what the future should sound like.”
If this story hits home, forward it to a fellow educator or creative.
Animating Kids is built on the same truth Joe teaches here: creativity is a team sport, and finishing is the real art.
Joe Animates With Kids. The Kids Are Animated1 Animating Kids indeed.
More Testimonials:
"I am impressed by...these programs, providing young people with the skills to become creative and critical thinkers...this shares my dedication to nurturing the next generation of filmmakers and visual storytellers."— Steven Spielberg - Referencing the work of Joe Summerhays“
"Joe (Animating Kids Founder) has turned the art of movie making for kids into a science.” — Jonathan Demme - Academy Award-Winning Director
“I absolutely love Animating Kids...you have no idea how amazing it is for a span of K-9. I’ve got the whole building covered and my planning was done for me. The kids LOVE the Animation Chefs. Win, win!!”— J. Tuttle - Media Specialist
"When I found Animating Kids it changed everything. Small and not so small humans became masters of sound and motion on any subject via small group PBL dynamics."— Rachel - Tech Coach - Quebec
“Animating Kids has changed everything! Fun, relevant media-making lessons for kids, and total P.D. for my non-film making teachers. A complete solution!!” — Principal - Bronx NY
"Animating Kids really helps focus our students during remote sessions…it keeps them so engaged. Your secret recipes are a life saver." — Marisol - Sacramento Ca
"The kids love the demonstrations and it is P.D. for me as I tee it all up. Animating Kids makes me the coolest educator in their lives!" — Charlotte - London UK
"This is the most important skills-based content for today’s kids. I don't think primary educators get how impactful this approach can be. It respects media content creation as the basic literacy it is for today’s kids. — Monique - White Plains NY
“We went through the entire process (PD workshop) of learning animated filmmaking with our tablets and smartphones. We could barely keep up. In the end we came away exhilarated rather than exhausted.” — Cathy S. - Librarian“
"My head was spinning. It involved: math, writing, science, team building, art, language arts, engineering, improvisation, innovation, acting, etc. Along with another dozen areas I can’t recall. Sneaky comprehensive. Mind blown. Can’t wait to use it in class.” — Marcia - 4th Grade Teacher
“Animation Chefs have created a really inspired program! My test group of (hardened gang members) like to laugh at the videos, and they love the simple clear explanations. They just have a blast...”
— G. Zucker Austin TX
"Thank you SO much for sharing your wealth of information and opening this world to every kid! I first learned about you when my husband introduced our daughter to you. Now I am bringing it into my after school program. I’m so psyched!" — Joy H. Retail After School Specialist
"Kids sign-up for robotics, coding, and stop motion sessions. After taking all three, they rate stop motion as their favorite track BY FAR. Animating Kids is key to our success." — Shane V. After School District Lead