The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lights, cameras, courses!
Charter school introduces students to film industry jobs.
For the past decade, the state’s film industry has been exploding. As more and more movie and television shows display the Georgia peach symbol at the end of the reel, the need for workers to support that industry has mushroomed. Programs to address the demand for people to work behind the scenes have been created in conjunction with technical colleges, and they’re now finding their way to another workforce source: high school teens.
At the Riverwood International Charter School in Sandy Springs, Jesse J.C. Futrell saw a way to make that connection between his students and the industry’s needs.
“We’re just now realizing that Atlanta is a real movie hub, and we’re finally meeting those needs at the high school level,” said Futrell, the school’s audio visual technology and film teacher. “It’s entry level, but it’s a way to give our kids a head start.”
The idea of training teens for film industry jobs has been a focus of Futrell’s work since he began building a technical education program at Riverwood back in 1995. After taking a detour to work in the industry and advance his own education, he returned to Sandy Springs in 2013 and energized the concept.
“Then, they called it media production,” he said. “They had a vision and some empty rooms but no equipment.”
Since then, Futrell received two grants to buy updated equipment, and he has been devising ways to introduce more students to career training for film needs. He spent two weeks last summer at Pinewood Studios south of town as part of a pilot program to show high school teachers how to incorporate curriculum from the Georgia Film Academy into their existing lessons.
“They also talked about helping us to get equipment, and now we have one real film camera on the way,” he said. “But I started teaching without it.”
Futrell has been leading four sections of a nine-week course that covers the specifics around camera shots, lenses, directing, wardrobe, lighting and more. About 120 students meet two or three times a week to learn the terms and technicalities that go into shooting a scene.
“A lot of them have heard some of these terms before, but they need to understand all the positions involved,” said Futrell.
Junior Atreyana Wiggins signed up for the program because she aspires to be an actor. “But I wanted to see it from the other side and understand how stuff works behind the scenes,” she said. “When I first started, I didn’t know how to set up cameras. I learned a lot, and now I’m into editing.”