Since we had such a great time at the San Francisco Film Society's Schools at the Festival, I stayed in touch with SFFS Education Program Managers Joanne Parsont and Keith Zwolfer. They really open doors (and my eyes) and reach out with films, by bringing filmmakers to students, for hands-on, direct exchanges. As I was already in town for the Roxie opening, Keith set me up with a Youth Media Educators initiative at Just Think, "where young people learn media literacy skills for the 21st Century." Every summer, high school students from all over the Bay Area are chosen to participate in this paid, six-week intensive summer program, which includes production projects and peer-to-peer teaching. When I walked in, Monday, about 20 students were just warming up with a game called "Catch The Bacon." Two teams, one stuffed animal, who gets to it first? Most had seen 1000 Journals at the press screening, so we jumped in to revisit a couple of multiple subject interviews on the DVD, and then tried to apply this to one of the students' projects, a documentary about gang violence. We set up two cameras, appointed a second group (whose project is a PSA on Global Warming) as mock subjects, and started rolling...
"The Bacon" made it back into the classroom, too...
There's no better give and take than sharing a bit of experience with students. How else does one even know there's something to share? These kids may think of me as oh-so-professional and grown-up, but in my day to day life, I'm inventing my wheels just like everyone else, one step at a time, with lots of experimenting, trials and errors, slowly finding out what works for me and what doesn't. And this hasn't changed all that much in my 40 plus years. But interestingly, all it takes is a few hours in a classroom, and the sense that one, or two, maybe three of the kids are really learning something and are encouraged to keep going. And that's how I felt when I arrived back at the airport -- encouraged to keep going, since I can share my process and extend help and support. I can't wait to see the finished 2008 YME films and will post links.
Update 9/13/2008: The films I See No Changes, A Green Able Truth, and In Difference, are no posted on Just Think's YouTube channel.
Arthur Grau, Program Director
Keith Zwolfer (SFFS), and teacher Jane Mauchly.
Comments