Spellebrity video night

The ballroom went wild Tuesday night, as spellers watched the videos of the five spellebrity teams. They are now the jury for the video prize and have until Thursday to cast their ballots for a winner.

All teamsThe competition is sponsored by Kindle in honor of National Reading Month, and is supposed to focus on how people can kindle their love of reading.

The Bigham Yago team made The Tale of the Indolent Sister, in which Lily Bigham convinced her film-sister, Emily Yago, that they could go on an adventure without leaving their residence. (She also got some spelling in there.)

 

Team Bigham YagoThe pair were princesses, fairies and mermaids as they learned a love of reading.

The film came from the question of what would happen if they went into a book, said Khara Bigham, who directed the film.

She said she was a "picky" director who demanded 15 shots to get a mermaid scene right.

"There was no snack break," Khara said.

Bryn with the Bee filmed Meant to Bee, a news program about interviews for a new pronouncer after Dr. Jacques Bailly was allegedly stung by a bee.

Those that auditioned included a mime, a pirate and Bryn Perrins' dog. None worked out.

Mime

"I added some characters that were not fit for the job," Bryn said. "Clearly, pirates cannot pronounce."

Bryn played all the roles in her film, and said she learned to mime from YouTube. She also applied a lot of makeup.

Luckily, Dr. Bailly was able to make it to the Bee in the end.

In a statement, Bryn's newscaster said, Dr. Bailly said he was "a friend to all bees, spellers and otherwise."

Kindle Cousins used an acrostic for Kindle to show the benefits that come from reading. Sisters Brooklyn and Eden Lewis and cousins Anna Noorlander and Andrew Jarvis learned to rap and play soccer, and integrated reading into their families' routines - including in the bathroom.

They had a Harry Potter party and a book club (while reading How to Pee). And they had whipped cream and mushrooms fall from the sky.

Kindle CousinsAnna's favorite part? Hitting her sister in the face with a newspaper during a paper route. She doesn't get to do that every day.

The cousins live in different states, and had to send their work between Utah and New York.

Team Champion's film, I Have a Dream, stemmed from the members' dreams of going to the National Spelling Bee, Elijah Glendy said.

"I had a dream and I guess now it's true," he said.

In the film, Elijah wins the Scripps National Spelling Bee with the word "kindle." Then he wakes up to his alarm.

Team ChampionWith Jordan Wolter and Isaiah Rider and Elijah's sister, Kya Glendy, the crew gave suggestions for words spellers should know while they talked about where and how they read.

They wanted to inspire other people, Elijah said.

Finally, the Fab Four wrote a rhyming poem about reading, including tons of favorite books - from Anne of Green Gables to Holes.

"Get off and get reading," the film said.

All together, sisters Kassidy, Kaydence and Kendall Wilkinson and their friend, Kenzie Vo, read nearly all the books in their film, they said.

They also used real cheese - on a hot Texas sidewalk - in their movie. No, they would not eat it.

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The girls got a vote of approval from one questioner.

"Can I borrow the poetry you wrote for a school assignment?" asked Jeff Zheng, speller 154. 

All in all, it was a great night - with lots of humor, and good questions from the spellers.

That included 6-year-old Edith Fuller, the youngest participant in the Bee, who often wanted to know why the films took so long to make - whether they took a week or a day.

Edith Fuller"Because we live so far away," Andrew Jarvis, who lives in Utah, said of the time it took to coordinate with his cousin in New York. "Then we had to edit it."

Anna Noorlander, the New York cousin, said she wanted to make the movie so she could do a project with her cousins.

"I wanted a reason to call them a lot," she said.

The winner will be announced Thursday evening.