NewEnglandFilm.com

The Boston Film / Video Foundation, working in conjunction with YWCA Boston Youth Voice Collaborative and WGBH, hosted a program for Boston’s youth called the Young Producers Program. This partnership expands the successful media literacy training for teens at the YVC to include production training and mentorship at BF/VF and production opportunities through WGBH. Participants, who were recruited through the YVC, come from diverse communities throughout Boston.

The program was made possible by generous support from the Boston Foundation, Newtonville Camera, and Bob Doyle and the Desktop Video Group, in addition to the contributions from the primary three collaborating organizations.

This past summer, the students, under the instruction of Steve Maing, former BF/VF Equipment Manager, completed their five-week production class at BF/VF. The program goals were to have them writing, directing, shooting, and editing in 4 1/2 weeks. With so much to learn, the curriculum was designed to immediately immerse the kids in production exercises giving them the freedom to make technical mistakes in practical shooting situations and talk about them later. After only their first exercise they were constructively critiquing each other’s work. In these discussions, the group was able to discover for themselves good production techniques, learn from each other, and incorporate the techniques into their next exercises. In addition, participants learned valuable "life skills" like cooperative team building skills, and application of critical thinking skills.

The plan for the program may have been to promote the redefinition of how urban teens are portrayed in media, but that doesn’t mean they all wanted to make social action documentaries. When they discussed the kind of films they wanted to make, it was actually an even mix between horror, comedy, and romance films as well as documentaries. When asked why they wanted to make films, and what they would bring to their films, the answers were similar. They may love movies like "Titanic" and "The Matrix," but when they thought about it, the characters in the films they often watch do not accurately represent them.

Their video projects gave light to a variety of topics important to inner-city teenagers ranging from relationships with family and friends to peer pressure and community concerns. When asked to come up with a name for their production company, students brainstormed and came up with a terrific acronym. They called themselves 2 FOOT FAME, which stands for To Focus On Our Teens, Films and Minorities Elevate.

Over the five-week course, the group amazingly managed to produce 12 personal videos, 2 public service announcements, a shot-for-shot- recreation of a scene from a Spike Lee film, first drafts for their own personal scripts and a collaborative short narrative film that incorporated documentary interviews.

On the last day of class, students organized a celebration and screening of their finished works. They invited friends, family and members of the community that they’d documented. The teens beamed with pride and accomplishment, as their hard work and achievements were manifest at this joyful event. The most impressive of the work may have been their individual personal videos that portrayed their lives with a sincerity not often found in adults.

The next step for these media-savvy teens is to now take more specialized courses at BF/VF, provided at no cost to the students thanks to grant support. The goal pending much needed additional funding, is for the group to then convene next summer and produce a collaborative project for WGBH local broadcast. Meanwhile at least one member of the group, Monise Odom, was recently selected for screening in the national competitive Do It Your Damn Self film and video festival in November.

For the group it may not be the completed works that sum up what they learned in this program. The stories in their films are ones they’ve always known. The opportunity to work creatively everyday and express themselves in a new medium is what they take with them wherever they choose to go.