Sunday, March 14, 2010

Teaching Youth, while instilling Passion and Empowering them to lead.

Connecting with students is one of the most important elements of successful teaching. In today’s world with information, peer pressure and parental pressure constantly presented to young people it is easy to understand how many can be overwhelmed and overlooked.

It is a visual media world with youtube, twitter, facebook, video games and everything else that is available on the internet. Young people spend hours every day viewing and using some sort of visual media.

So what if you were able to take a subject that was important to a local group of high school students and show them how to turn it into a story and then produce a high quality movie based on their own script?

It’s a powerful process that can ignite and entrust youth to be leaders in their own community.

Project AWARE has done this in Maine communities and the results have been inspiring. I personally attended the premiere of their latest film, "Influenced" and I was fascinated by the stories that the teenagers told and how empowered all of them were by the process of making the film.

This is education at its best.

I would like to see this process happen in as many Maine communities as possible. In the next two weeks there will be two assemblies at Falmouth High School where students will go through a brief workshop and view the movie, "Influenced". The intent is to help create “ a community where young people are leaders, and are addressing issues of concern in their lives from their perspective and in their voice…. a place where their voices, thoughts, concerns, and solutions are welcomed and heard… and from that place, youth-led action is taken. “

On Monday March 22- 6-8pm in the FHS Music Room there will be a parent night where the workshop and “Influenced” will be presented to parents.

From that point forward there is the opportunity for Falmouth students to create their own film and express themselves in regard to issues that impact them and their community.

All of this comes outside of the local education budget. If you would like to donate to the Falmouth Presentations please send checks to”
Falmouth High School,
In the memo line write "Enrichment Program"
74 Woodville Rd
Falmouth, Maine 04015

If you would like to donate directly to Project AWARE please send checks to:

Project AWARE, Inc.
PO Box 1244,
Saco, ME 04072

Friday, March 5, 2010

Maine Films to Receive Industry Review

Getting professional feedback on a film project, as it is in progress, is important and not easy to do. The Maine Film and Video Association has arranged for five Maine films to be reviewed by six industry experts and they’d like you to come along and enjoy the process.

The five films are:

Morgan Myers' “No Apologies: The Education of Gary Reed Meyer” : http://www.noapologiesmovie.com/

Ben Kahn's “Felon”: http://www.nomadpictures.net/Clip%20Player%20HTMLs/Felon_1.html

Daniel Stephens and Brooke Brewer's “Designing Change”: http://blip.tv/file/3005835 password: design

Huey “In Good Time: The Piano Jazz of Marian McPartland”

David Berez and Gregory Roscoes’ “Raw Faith”

The Industry Experts:

Sara Archambault - Program Manager, LEF Foundation New England

Cynthia Fenneman - President and CEO, American Public Television

Ben Fowlie - Founder/Director, Camden International Film Festival

Tom Koch - VP, PBS International

Mary Lampson - Film Editor (Independent Lens, American Masters) now based in Maine

Louise Rosen – moderator, international sales agent, Vice Chair of the Maine Film & Video Association

Location: Maine Studios, 235 Presumpscot St., Portland, ME