deadCENTER Film @ Guthrie Junior High & Langston University
The deadCENTER Film education team recently visited the campuses of Guthrie Junior High and Langston University to talk about independent film. In Guthrie, fabulous 8th Grade English Comp teacher Cate Hart opened her class to a seminar about storytelling and creative writing by watching different types of short films – animated, narrative and documentary – and discussing ways of picking topics, creating interesting characters and composing complete stories. The Langston University session was introduced by their wonderful Communication and Television Professor, Carolyn Ross. The group of 25 college students watched best of class college produced short films and then studied clips from the movie Pearl, produced by the Chickasaw Nation, filmed in Guthrie and debuted in Oklahoma at the deadCENTER Film Festival. Through Pearl, we were able to explore the different education opportunities in Oklahoma and the 50+ positions and careers available in film production.
deadCENTER Film kicked off our 2010 Fall Education program at Jenks High School. Under the leadership of film teacher Clifton Raphael, Jenks High School has become one of the preeminent programs in Oklahoma, creating the first and only entirely high-school-produced program to air on Oklahoma statewide TV: Behind the Lens with Oklahoma’s Future Filmmakers on OETA. Mr. Raphael started each class with a class critique of a short doc, followed by a presentation from the deadCENTER Film staff about the process of entering a film into festivals, how the film festival circuit works, the advantages to filmmakers of screening in the festival atmosphere and examples of great student films that have done well on the festival circuit. The session then focused on the education and feature film experience of Executive Director Lance McDaniel and COO Kim Haywood, providing an overview of the various Oklahoma collegiate programs and an outline of career paths within professional filmmaking. The classes ended with a look the film Rainbow Around the Sun, produced by Kim Haywood and co-directed by deadCENTER Film Program Director Kevin Ely. For info on how to get deadCENTER Film to present at your school, please email lance@deadcenterfilm.org.
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