A dying woman lies in a stark hospital room. Her eyes are closed. Her husband sits somberly on one side of her bed. Her son, the other. 鈥淐鈥檓on Kyle, let鈥檚 let your mom rest,鈥� the father says. The son nods, bends down, and kisses his mother鈥檚 pale cheek. She doesn鈥檛 stir.
A phone rings shrilly in the next room, interrupting the poignant scene.
鈥淐ut!鈥� says student Nora Hansel loudly, and sighs in exasperation. The woman pops up in bed, all business.
鈥淯nplug that thing,鈥� she says, then lies down, adjusting the breathing tube in her nose. She smiles gamely.
Ms. Hansel stops recording her short film, 鈥淏eyond the Shadows,鈥� with a digital video camera she鈥檇 set up here in a friend鈥檚 South Austin apartment. Tucking a strand of hair behind one ear, she directs the actors to take their places and reminds her student crew to be quiet. She pushes the record button on the video camera. The actors redo the scene.
A high school junior, Ms. Hansel is one of about 40 film students at the private St. Stephen鈥檚 Episcopal School, which has had a filmmaking program since 2003.
The 600-student school for grades 6-12 is part of what experts see as a trend toward more courses in filmmaking in public and private schools around the country.
鈥淭here is an upwelling of teen filmmaking. Demand is coming from the kids,鈥� says Troy Lanier, St. Stephen鈥檚 filmmaking teacher and a co-author of the 2005 book Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts. 鈥淎nd it is occurring both in and outside the classroom.鈥�
Teenagers have always been interested in movies. But until recently, filmmaking was the province of cash-rich motion-picture studios, or of dads wielding bulky Super 8-millimeter video cameras to make grainy home movies.
Now, accessible and affordable digital technology and sophisticated but easy-to-use video-editing software are spawning a generation of amateur auteurs, says Clay Nichols, the screenwriting teacher at St. Stephen鈥檚 and the other co-author of Filmmaking for Teens.
鈥淜ids are desperate to be creative,鈥� Mr. Nichols says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the digital revolution. There are no barriers to entry now.鈥�
Today鈥檚 teenagers are growing up in a media-saturated world in which they have far more control over not just what they can watch but also what they can create, compared with generations before them. 鈥淸Students] now have access to technology at home,鈥� says Mary Celeste Kearney, an assistant professor in the radio-television-film department at the University of Texas at Austin and the founder of CinemaKids, a local filmmaking program for 6- to 12-year-olds. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not something special, as it was for kids of my generation.鈥�
First-Place Student-Film Entry/SXSW Film Festival 2006:
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Chris Hergert, a 17-year-old junior at the North East School of the Arts in San Antonio, wanted to 鈥渕ake a film about Germany, because I鈥檓 German.鈥� His short drama, set in the World War II era, tells the story of a young Jewish mother鈥檚 attempt to escape the Nazis. The actors鈥擬r. Hergert鈥檚 sister, father, and uncle鈥攕peak entirely in German, and the film is subtitled in English
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Film stills courtesy of Chris Hergert
Creating homemade films is even cheaper than it was just a scant four years ago, says Chris Deaux, the writer, director, and producer of the 2005 documentary 鈥淭he Last Western鈥� and the executive producer of Paradox Television LLC, a Los Angeles-based production company.
Back then, he spent close to $4,000 just for two 18-gigabyte media hard drives to capture and store his films. For his new documentary, he bought a much more powerful, 500-gigabyte hard drive for only about $500.
鈥淚 shot 100 hours of footage, and I didn鈥檛 fill half that drive,鈥� Mr. Deaux says. 鈥淏efore, it was always a big burden to make a movie, even by our minimal, guerrilla standards.鈥�
Other venues are encouraging student filmmaking. Independent film festivals, such as last month鈥檚 South by Southwest, or SXSW, festival here in the capital of Texas, are adding film competitions for teenagers.
The Internet is also prime real estate for student-made films. Students can upload their films on social-networking or entertainment sites such as New York City-based MySpace.com, San Mateo, Calif.-based Youtube.com, or Varsityworld.com, which is owned by the Varsity Media Group, an entertainment company targeting teenagers, based in this film-savvy town.
Another outlet is Current TV, an independent cable and satellite network based in San Francisco and founded last year by former Vice President Al Gore. A third of the youth-oriented network鈥檚 content is created by viewers, who can also learn about the craft through video interviews on Current TV鈥檚 Web site by experts such as the actor-director Robert Redford and Ira Glass, the host and producer of Public Radio International鈥檚 鈥淭his American Life.鈥�
Chris Hergert, a 17-year-old junior in San Antonio鈥檚 North East School of the Arts, won first place at the teen-film competition at the South by Southwest festival for his short film titled 鈥淢aik盲fer,鈥� German for 鈥渓adybug.鈥� Mr. Hergert, who lived in Germany until age 7, commented on World War II by creating a film on a young Jewish woman鈥檚 foiled escape from a Nazi officer.
Runner-Up Student-Film Entry/SXSW Film Festival 2006:
Austin High School senior Elizabeth G. Mims鈥� film is a meditative look at aging that is told through the perspective of an elderly woman鈥檚 umbrella. Ms. Mims explains how she came up with the idea: 鈥淚 started thinking about what I considered visually interesting. What objects do you see around a lot and could have a story behind them? Forgotten objects 鈥� and how to connect them to human lives.鈥�
Film still courtesy of Elizabeth G. Mims
The production was completely homemade. Mr. Hergert used no film crew, and the actors were his sister, his father, and his uncle. The film was subtitled; all dialogue was spoken in German.
It took Mr. Hergert about a month to make the film, which was lauded by several in the audience at the March 12 SXSW film screening for its maturity, pacing, and lush cinematography. Then again, Mr. Hergert has been making movies for almost half his life. 鈥淚鈥檝e had a camera in my hand since I was 8,鈥� he says.
Austin High School senior Elizabeth G. Mims, the runner-up in the SXSW teen-film competition, has also been interested in filmmaking for years. Her short film, 鈥淲eathered,鈥� is a meditative look on aging. It helped get Ms. Mims accepted into the competitive California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Calif., where she will study film.
Filmmaking has taught her how to better communicate with people, and to be more organized. 鈥淵ou have to think ahead,鈥� Ms. Mims says of planning a film project. 鈥淵ou have to consider exactly what you need.鈥�
More teachers, meanwhile, are using digital video cameras to enhance learning in core subjects such as English and social studies. At St. Stephen鈥檚, for example, students worked with a history teacher to capture several oral-history projects of the school on film. Some students also produced a short film on Harriet Tubman.
At the North East School of the Arts, film teacher Konise Millender tells students on the first day of filmmaking class that they鈥檒l be learning more than just how to shoot scenes and move pictures around on a computer screen. The San Antonio school, structured as a magnet program within the larger Robert E. Lee High School, offers seven majors, including cinema.
Various resources can help educators and students with filmmaking.
Books:
Programs and consulting:
Film festivals with student competitions:
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Students use math when determining equipment and production budgets for their short films, Ms. Millender says. They also use spatial reasoning when blocking out the floor plans for their films, and learn how to develop the arc of a story when writing their screenplays.
鈥淚 tell kids, 鈥極K, I tricked you,鈥� 鈥� Ms. Millender says. 鈥淭his isn鈥檛 just cinema class, but also an English class, a history class, a math class.鈥�
But while some schools have knowledgeable film teachers, other teachers don鈥檛 have that expertise and are scrambling to keep up with their tech-savvy students, say Mr. Lanier and Mr. Nichols, both 39, who have backgrounds that include filmmaking, screenwriting, and playwriting. Mr. Lanier co-directed a documentary, 鈥淪treets Without Cars,鈥� that aired on PBS, while Mr. Nichols has written a dozen plays, which have been performed by repertory companies across the country.
Next year, their new book, Filmmaking for Teens: Docs and Mocs鈥擸our Reel Life,is slated to be published byMichael Wiese Productions, and later this year, they will debut their new 鈥渉ow to鈥� video for expectant fathers, called 鈥淒ue Dads: The Man鈥檚 Survival Guide to Pregnancy.鈥� They鈥檝e also started Storyboard Consulting LLC, a for-profit firm to help schools develop curricula and courses in filmmaking, as well as students aspiring to become the next Quentin Tarantino.
Some schools are hiring teachers with film-industry credentials through alternative certification, the two say. But many teachers are simply learning as they go along.
鈥淚t鈥檚 somewhat of the Wild, Wild West,鈥� Mr. Lanier says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 easy to press 鈥榬ecord,鈥� but to produce a quality product is an issue.鈥�
Filmmaking is also effective for teaching media literacy, says Mr. Nichols. In an age when electronic media are dominant forms of communication, it鈥檚 essential for young people to learn how to critically assess films and other visual media, instead of just passively consuming them, he says.
鈥淭hey learn to look at the bones of a film, 鈥� to be more objective,鈥� Mr. Nichols says. 鈥淔ilmmaking is the most powerful way to teach media literacy. All kids deserve to have a barrier of knowledge between them and the media that鈥檚 trying to shape their behavior.鈥�
Jaclyn Bays, an 18-year-old senior at St. Stephen鈥檚 and a member of Ms. Hansel鈥檚 film crew, pauses from putting away the equipment at the end of the afternoon鈥檚 film shoot.
She explains her interest in film by talking about its universal appeal and the storytelling control the medium gives her. 鈥淵ou can write a script and say, 鈥楬ere鈥檚 what I want to say,鈥� 鈥� Ms. Bays says. 鈥淚 definitely see the world in a different way now.鈥�
