Barbara Worth students screen film projects
B RAWLEY — Acting in front of a camera, it turns out, can be pretty stressful, said Barbara Worth Junior High School seventh-grader Ernesto Bernal.
On the other hand, working behind the scenes to help edit and direct classmates, as well as oversee production schedules, was more to the 14-year-old’s liking despite the initial challenges.
“It wasn’t easy at first because we had students that didn’t want to listen,” Ernesto said.
This school year, as part of the campus’ participation in the Latino Film Institute Youth Cinema Project, Ernesto and his classmates got to write, film and market their own short films, which they then screened for fellow student filmmakers, as well as institute and talent scouts last week in Los Angeles.
Aside from being the producer of his group of classmates’ short film called “Concert Fail,” Ernesto also starred in another student group’s film, “Slime Brains,” while appearing briefly in a third group’s project about bullying called “Broken.”
The students’ filmmaking experience was a vast difference from the literature books and classroom instruction that is traditionally associated with English class. Yet it was also aimed at exposing students to the “Four Cs,” which include collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking, said seventh-grade English teacher Amy Quarcelino.
“The English instruction that is going on is limited to what they are doing,” Quarcelino said. “We’re learning (the four Cs) through the movie-making process.”
This school year marked the first time that the campus participated in the LFI cinema project, which was founded by famed actor, director and activist Edward James Olmos.
Quarcelino said she jumped at the chance to be able to host the cinema project, twice a week converting two of her 90-minute English class sessions into learning about the film production process.
At the start of the school year, students were advised to suggest a movie topic based on a combination of a recent movie and one of their favorite feature films. Students were then assembled into three groups that determined their best potential movie ideas, which the entire class then had to whittle down to three.
Once the three group cinema projects were selected, students started writing scripts, while three students were chosen by their peers to serve as producers and project leaders, Quarcelino said.
It didn’t take long for some issues to arise, mainly stemming from the fact that her students had different levels of participation, responsibilities and interest, yet were tasked with completing the collaborative projects on deadline.
“They have to be creative about it, because they can’t just sit there and say ‘You’re stupid’” Quarcelino said. “If something doesn’t work, they have to go back and make it work.”
As opposed to traditional English language arts curriculum, Quarcelino took a back seat and essentially let the students take the reins, albeit with the assistance of LFI representatives.
The dynamic between students and their film instructors was also very different from that of a teacher-student relationship, said LFI instructor Luis Garcia.
The instructors are expected to relate to the students as their colleagues, and vice versa, in order to foster better understanding of the filmmaking process, communication and collaboration, said Garcia, who grew up in Mexicali and attended school in the Valley.
“It changes how they talk to you and how they write,” he said.
Although it was not uncommon to have students regularly disagree on matters, and get stressed out like only young students can, the film projects also provided them an opportunity to learn to respect one another’s ideas and work through their issues in a professional manner.
“I think they are great skills to have to learn at this age,” Garcia said.
The LFI cinema project had originally been envisioned by Olmos as a strategy to keep young at-risk students from dropping out. Expansion efforts soon followed as a result of increased reading and writing proficiency among participating students, an LFI representative previously stated.
On Thursday, during a special LFI film screening held at a Creative Artists Agency theater for several participating Southern California middle school and elementary school campuses, Olmos told local students that their newly acquired audio and video skills will serve them well in the future no matter what type of career they choose to pursue.
“You’ll always know how to use this medium,” Olmos said. “This language is yours now.”
Twelve-year-old Savana Sandoval said she is already using her newly acquired audio-visual skills to take better pictures and think more critically about what she sees on the big screen.
“I now notice if a wardrobe malfunctions or if any scenes are a little off,” said the sound mixer for the “Concert Fail” project, which was a mash-up of the television series “Cash Cab” and a Selena Gomez concert.
Savana also said the cinema project taught her the importance of being open to constructive criticism as well as collaboration. Although Savana said she is not entirely sure of what type of career she would like to pursue, she did develop a fondness for the filmmaking experience.
“If I do this in high school again, I would continue doing it,” Savana said.