Fort Greene Info X-Change

SCRIPTWRITING LESSON #3 - LEARNING TO LOVE THE PUNCH

2009-10-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

(Up by the end of 10/12/09 - Happy holiday!)

SCRIPTWRITING LESSON #2 : DETAILS, DETAILS

2009-10-05T10:36:00.002-07:00

Students retreat into their thoughts

September 30th, 1st Session of "INTRO TO SCRIPTWRITING: Blueprint for Making a Film" Class

COMMENTS MADE BY STUDENTS AT THE END OF CLASS:

“Definitely shows me some of the mistakes I made in writing my first script – or better said attempting to write my first script. I know what to change now, like where you put the character’s name, the margins and font you use. What really opened my eyes though was the detailed descriptions of the scene. You need to give whoever reads the script a vivid ideal of what you will see in the shot – a description of the physical location as well as the character.” – Sean

“I’m a medical student. I look forward to my first attempt at something in an artistic style, it’s not my background. I’ve learned there’s a lot more to the writing than what the character is saying or doing. You also have to think of where they are in space and time.” – Aton

“It’s very different than any of the other writing I’ve done. It’s interesting to look at some of the limitations that script has as opposed to story writing. Such as the “briefness” factor. With script you need detailed descriptions of character and location to build the story, but you need to be very brief. Doing that will be a challenge.” – Cameryn

“I think I’ll be able to put my ideas onto the paper now. This class gave me some really good ideas about how I start from where I am.” -Sreekauth

“I’m conquering a challenge. I’ve put off writing for such a long time, but I now feel I have tools. This class is making me feel like I can get rid of that word -- 'Can’t'". - Adrian

(for a full listing of the "MAKE A FILM" Class Series: http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/academics/continuinged/pdf/fall09_csc.pdf page 5)

SCRIPTWRITING LESSON #2 : DETAILS, DETAILS

THE WAITING ROOM

In my last Monday, October 28th posting, I started the scriptwriting lessons by giving you a student script to analyze, Paula Philip's THE WAITING ROOM (3rd Draft):

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B81mLptbTBIhNDJkMjZjZmMtNWYzMS00ZTFjLTkyNjYtYWQ4ZGEyY2UyYTE0&hl=en

This script was chosen as the film project for the Spring 2009 "MAKE A FILM" Class Series. As a teacher, I assumed the role of producer and director and led the class through a detailed critique of the script. I asked the student writer and all the other students, how would you solve the problems I outlined? Taking their suggestions into account, I then gave them a detailed vision of the story I wanted to make. ( See the October 28th posting for both the questions and the vision: http://fginfox.blogspot.com/2009/09/your-scriptwriting-lesson-1-opening up.html

I told them, "What I want to show you is how a director thinks. All the considerations and influences and decisions. As a writer, the more you understand how a director thinks (and an actor) the better writer you'll become." With Paula's permission, I became a co-writer on the script. This is my revision of THE WAITING ROOM:

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B81mLptbTBIhNzJkZGJjNGItM2Q3NC00YzM0LTgxYTMtZWUzYTRiMmM1NDk1&hl=en

Now you have the two script versions to study. Look at Paula's 3rd Draft, then look at my rewrite. Use a highlighter and mark all the changes you see -- in dialogue, in character description, in props and set. Think of it like one of those kid's picture puzzles -- These Two Pictures Look Alike -- But Some Things Have Been Changed in the Second Picture. Can You Find All the Changes? -- Different from doing a kid's puzzle, you should also ask, "Why did those things change? What purpose did it serve?"

(If someone learns to be sensitive to the characters they create in a script -- do you think it will make the person more sensitive to the people in his own life?)

Next Monday I'll detail some of the things that changed with my version of THE WAITING ROOM, and give you the why. You might not agree with my choices, but by thinking about them, it will make you rethink your own choices and realize how many diffrent ways you can take things.

-- Trayce

SCRIPTWRITING LESSON #1 - OPENING UP TO THE WORLD

2009-09-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

Students in a BYFC Scriptwriting Class

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf’s a flower.” - Albert Camus

I turned a calendar page a few days early and found that quote. As a winter depressive, it’s hard for me to think of falling leaves with joy. Autumn is a good time though for writing. It’s a time to retreat. Comedy, horror, sci-fi, you know what you love. You have your starting idea, you have your characters. You’re excited and you’re lost. You don’t know what to focus on or how to take the next step. Maybe you bought a camera and you’re dreaming about making your big idea into a film. You need to retreat from your ambitions for a moment. Big ambitions can cover up big fears.

Take time for learning. Real learning is hard to do after you’ve been pushed out into the world and have to watch your back, hurrying to the time clock and counting the dollars. Maybe you are not yet at the age where you’re legally allowed to go where you want, or maybe at your age you’re not physically capable of going wherever you want. You have people depending on you, or people who think you incapable. Maybe you feel like a fallen leaf about to be swept aside. Only through a retreat within yourself can you find the flower.

Our next “MAKE A FILM” Class Series starts on Wednesday with the “INTRO TO SCRIPTWRITING: Blueprint for Making A Film” Class. (for a complete class series listing: See page 5 http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/academics/continuinged/pdf/fall09_csc.pdf

On a practical level students in the first class session will learn proper script format and how it shapes the way a story is told. Visit the BYFC website for a lesson on how scripts are formatted http://wearebyfc.org/scriptwritingclass.html Then download free screenwriting software at http://celtx.com/ .

Students in a BYFC Scriptwriting Class

Next students will be introduced to the tools a Scriptwriter is given to tell a story visually: actors, gestures, little and big acts, props, set pieces, wardrobe and sound. (The storytelling visuals of camera and lighting are mostly left to the Director.)

The last part of the first class session is devoted to retreat. How do you retreat? From your ordinary world. You have the skeleton of an idea for a script. The next part is not a lot of writing – It’s a lot of “Prewriting” It’s brainstorming, talking with friends, interviewing, researching, drawing, mapping and in general Being Open To The World. Most people don’t know how to do this (in any part of their lives) or the value of doing it.

How do you find the living story -- the one that turns characters into people that the audience will think they know and find themselves caring about. Don’t do it! Watch out! How could you be so stupid! A writer is thrilled when the audience talks back to the screen.

The assignment I give students at the end of the first class session is to write a one scene, one location script with no more than 2 to 3 characters. And if they want the script to be considered in the future by Brooklyn Young Filmmakers for producing, it has to be makeable on a low-low budget.

In my post last week, I put up a link to Paula Philip's student script "THE WAITING ROOM", which was produced by our Spring 2009 "Make A Film" Class. After she brought the 1st draft to the second class session, which only had the 3 characters: Kimberly, Hilary, and the Nurse, I told her she could add additional characters if she wanted. This is a link to the 3rd draft that she brought in:

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B81mLptbTBIhNDJkMjZjZmMtNWYzMS00ZTFjLTkyNjYtYWQ4ZGEyY2UyYTE0&hl=en

Paula’s storyline with its twist and strong emotional confrontations immediately got cheers from the other students in the class. But I gave the following critique:

1) The characters are one dimensional and have no sense of life beyond the immediate situation they have been put in. I told students that this will become apparent once you cast actors and they start asking questions about their characters. Why they do what they do and where did they come from?

2) Whose point-of-view are we following? Is there anyone we’re suppose to be rooting for? What is the message of the story?

3) The opening exchange between Kimberly and Hilary about the perfume gives readers an immediate hint of what is to come. How do you keep this exchange – but bury it in a larger context so the audience won’t immediately be suspecting the true situation?

By the 2nd class of our MAKE A FILM class series, Paula’s script was one of three we were considering for shooting. In the end her script was selected, in part because we were able to secure an appropriate location to shoot it.

In addition to being primary instructor, I took on a new role, director of the short film we were going to shoot. I told students that when a director becomes involved in the project the script enters a new phase of development. A film is a director’s vision. That means as a scriptwriter you have to be flexible and open to make changes in the script to make it match the vision of the story the director wants to make. The director might like the basic storyline of your script, but not all the characters or the details or the events.

REMEMBER – THERE IS NO ONE WAY TO WRITE A SCRIPT.

Three different professional writers could take your student script and turn it into sci-fi, comedy, or tragedy. If you want your script produced you have to go with the version the director likes (or else produce the film yourself).

As Director, I told the class my vision for the film and what I wanted changed in the script:

1) We need to make a film that Brooklyn Young Filmmakers can show as a “TEACHING STORY”, so I do not want any of the characters to seem completely awful. If they are, then no one in the audience will want to admit that they can identify with any of the actions or motivations of the characters. Back Stories need to be created for Kimberly, Hilary, and Michael, so you can believe that they all started out as regular human beings wanting normal things – but something went incredibly wrong and they ended up in this horrible situation, maybe doing some things that are wrong. And I want story arcs created for all three, so you believe that they each learn something by the end.

I 86’d the character of the videographer who appears at the end of Paula’s script. I do not what the viewer to step out of the story to observe the characters. (Not that this could not be made to work. I just did not want to go that route.)

2) I want the Nurse character to be changed from a female to a black male. I want the Nurse to be a stronger figure, both comforting and protecting, rather than just an observer. Personally, as a black female, I like the idea of the black working class male showing more dignity and caring than the white upscale male. And it will make the story more saleable to a part of the audience we want to reach. Plus there’s a student in our class who would be great in the part (Charles Hightower, an MTA worker – he auditioned in front of the class and got the part.)

3) I want a mother and child added to the characters in THE WAITING ROOM for these reasons: a) It will give a visual reality to the underlying topic – having children b) We can cast participants from our host location, Brooklyn Child & Family Services c) It will help the gynecologist’s office seem populated

You as a reader now know the major script changes the Director has requested. As a writer, how do you revise the script? Come up with your own answers, then tune in next Monday, October 5th, to see the revised WAITING ROOM script.

Students from the Spring 2009 MAKE A FILM Class working on script revisions. Paula Philip, the student writer is 2nd from left

- Trayce

WHAT DO YOU DO AFTER YOU SHOOT A FILM? – YOU SHOOT ANOTHER: Next BYFC “MAKE A FILM” Class Series Starts Sept 30th!

2009-09-20T23:44:00.001-07:00

(Check out below for free Scriptwriting Lessons!)

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers intergenerational Community Filmmaking Project brings together diverse neighbors, friends, and even family members for a creative, technical, and intuitive act – making a film. Learn how to create a believable story and a physical world for that story, then as a team capture the vision you have created through camera, lighting, production design and sound.

Learn how to plan your own shoot and

How to call upon your own community for help

Find out about the diverse jobs in the film industry that might suit your personality and abilitieshow to get started and what you have to sacrifice for the pleasure of doing something you like

Already a filmmaker or a retired professional?

Then join the class and bring your skills

Your vision to share in a meaningful environment.

Students from our Spring 2009 "MAKE A FILM" Class
studying what it all begins with - the Script!

BROOKLYN YOUNG FILMMAKERS “MAKE A FILM” CLASS SERIES

1st Class:

INTRO TO SCRIPTWRITING:Written Blueprint for Making a Film(Development)FLM 100 Wednesdays, September 30, October 7,14,21,28, 6:00-9:00pm15 hours ($90)

Open to adults of all ages and teens 16yrs and older

25 Chapel Street, 4th Flr(

At NYC College of Technology Continuing Ed Division)

A,C,F – Jay St/Borough Hall 2,3,4,5 –Borough Hall M,N,R – Court Street

To Register: Call the Continuing Ed: (718) 552-1170

For more info on the classes contact Brooklyn Young Filmmakers classes@wearebyfc.org (718) 935-0490
http://www.wearebyfc.org/

(note: our blog is currently more up-to-date than our website)

A comprehensive introduction to screenwriting and how a script is used by all departments as the “blueprint” for making a film. Students will write their own short scripts while studying the four short films that Brooklyn Young Filmmakers has produced in its last four class series*. Students will also read and discuss the student script “THE EX-FACTOR”, which we shoot in the third class.

(Note: Students in this current class will have the opportunity of having their scripts considered as the script selected for production in the Spring 2010 “Make A Film” Class Series.)

Want a free Scriptwriting Lesson?

Paula Philip's script "THE WAITING ROOM" was produced by the Spring 2009 "Make A Film" Class.

Read Paula's original student script (2nd draft) :

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B81mLptbTBIhNDJkMjZjZmMtNWYzMS00ZTFjLTkyNjYtYWQ4ZGEyY2UyYTE0&hl=en

Make you own notes about what you like or don't like or don't understand. Then check out our blog every Monday for new lessons:

September 28th

A critique of the 2nd draft of “THE WAITING ROOM” and ideas on how to further develop the script. Feedback by Paula Philip, the student writer, about the critique and revision process. Plus an introduction to script format and where you can find free scriptwriting software online.

October 5th

Posting of the revised script with Director’s notes. Plus notes on Production Design.

October 12th

Understanding the script: Director’s notes to an actor.

October 19th

Sample Storyboards and a Shot List

October 26th

Lessons from “THE WAITING ROOM” Shoot

Paula Philip (a Clinton Hill resident) and Trayce (BYFC Director)

point to still photos of the waiting area in

Brooklyn Child & Family Services (www.bcafs.org/) ,

the Fort Greene location Brooklyn Young Filmmakers

secured for "THE WAITING ROOM" shoot.

(Find out October 5th why we decided

the furnishings and wall coverings already up

in the waiting area in Brooklyn Child & Family Services

didn’t work for “THE WAITING ROOM”)

2nd & 3rd Classes in the “MAKE A FILM” Series:

GETTING STARTED IN FILM: Intro to Production Assistant & Organizing a Low Budget Shoot (Pre-Production)

FLM 200 Wednesdays, November 4,11,18,25, December 2, 9, 16, 6:00-9:00pm 21 Hrs ($120)

A primer on how to make a low budget film and the basics of getting started as a production assistant, using the script “THE EX-FACTOR” as a case study. Students will help workshop the script to develop a shooting script, storyboards, and production design, and then participate in Community Auditions for actors and a Community Scavenger Hunt for wardrobe, props, and set needs. (This class is offered through the Continuing Ed of NYC College of Technology. To Register call: (718) 552-1170.)

MAKE A FILM Class (Production)

FLM 300 Wednesdays, January 6, 13, 20, 6:00 – 9:00pm (plus-out-of-class assignments) & Weekend Shoot 25 Hrs ($120)

Students who take FLM 100 or FLM 200 will be eligible to take this class offered directly by the Brooklyn Young Filmmakers at the location we will be shooting at in Fort Greene. The camera and lighting departments will be headed by a film professional with students assisting. To register for this class contact Brooklyn Young Filmmakers: (718)935-0490 classes@wearebyfc.org

Upcoming:

December 5th, Brooklyn Young Filmmakers

“FAMILY FILMMAKING HOLIDAY EVENT”

The Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Community Filmmaking Project is made possible in part by the Brooklyn Arts Council DCA Regrant Program and Councilwoman Letitia James

THE WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT EVEN TRYING -- Community Filmmaking Entry 7/8/09

2009-07-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

THE TIME HAS ARRIVED! At the end of this month Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is shooting “THE WAITING ROOM”, a short narrative film. You can be involved in Community Filmmaking! We're auditioning now. The New York Times Fort Greene blog, The Local, recently published our casting call for actors (you don't have to have acting experience if you fit the role): http://fort-greene.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/showbiz-beckons/ Check it out, and if it’s not for you, pass it on to your neighbor.

FINANCING OUR FILM:

The 1st Annual FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day

YOURS FOR $45 DONATION
Bungee Office Chair, like new, donated by a neighbor to BYFC's stoop sale

(Costs $140 at the Container Store!)
http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?searchId=21263358&itemIndex=2&CATID=77273&PRODID=10022641

(plus we'll put your name in the film credits!)

And we've got INK for you!

It can be yours with a donation to our film project (BYFC is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit):
(2) HP Q6511X / Canon FX3 for CFX-L400,L3500,L4500 / Office Depot for use in Dell 310-5400 / Office Depot for use in Brother TN-430, compatible with HL1240 printer / Image Max CCI-06A for use in HP 5L,6L, compatible with C3906A / Better Value for HP 1100 printer ……Make us an offer. It’s valuable stuff we can’t use.

(To make an offer email: trayceg@wearebyfc.org / (718)935-0490)

All things though cannot be measured in stoop sale dollars. The Fort Greene Information X-Change Stoop Sale Day represented Brooklyn Young Filmmakers taking its community organizing ideals out to the community in a whole new way and with a new neighborhood partner, Fort Greene SNAP. Here’s some of the other wonderful things we got out of the day:

A GOOGLE MAP

We figured a great way of advertising a neighborhood stoop sale day was online. I asked Andy Newman of The Local, for use of the software or template that he uses for the blog’s crime map. It’s Google Maps, baby! ( http://maps.google.com/ ) When I told Henrietta this at SNAP (where she runs the community computer lab) it was just a little over three weeks before the stoop sale day. In-between everything else she does, Henrietta learned how to create this great Google map of the different sites in the neighborhood for our stoop sale day: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=114264678009539317888.00046d023aa01a5af863a&z=15,

Henrietta at SNAP, “Yeah, I conquered Google Maps, and I help turn others into conquerors!"

(Note: She only wears her cape in night hours when the moon is crescent)

Our FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day got an announcement in TIMEOUT NY that sent readers to the BYFC and SNAP websites for a link to the map. Plus neighborhood blogs publicized the map. The map got over 1,000 views, and in the pursuit of used treasure, a lot of people who never heard of our non-profits looked at our websites.

I stopped by a neighbor’s house on Vanderbilt the day before the stoop sale to pick up a box of donations. She greeted me with “I love your map!” I was surprised by Kathleen’s enthusiasm about the map since as coordinator of the annual South of the Navy Yard Artists Stroll she had created an online map herself. I asked, why was our map better than the one she had created.

“Because it’s interactive with those great pop-ups! We’re definitely going to use Google maps for our SONYA Stroll map next year.”

I didn’t understand fully what she meant until I took time to play with the map. There are pop-ups by all the site balloons telling you some of the things the site is selling. It is cool! Since the stoop sale day Henrietta and I have talked about what we want to do next year – Remember this was the 1st Annual! -- Henrietta is already tripping on possibilities, “We can put in links to flickr.com and show pictures of some of the more interesting items being offered at the stoop sales!”

As an internet primitive, I feel like Dorothy at the start of the yellow brick road – only we are at the start of our online adventures.

LIKING THE IDEA A LOT

Our board and volunteers definitely loved the hanging out and storytelling and bartering with passersby and the neighbors. (We relaxed so much that day we forgot to take pictures!) I think we all need to be surprised by and marvel at and feel comfort with people we don’t know, if we are to keep fresh for viewing the wide world beyond us. The day was wonderful for this, but what didn’t get played out much this first time is that we also want it to be a day for information exchange about your local non-profits. (Though seven filmmakers from the neighborhood walked up the BYFC stoop sale and signed up to help in different ways.)

Most of our volunteers had never been to a stoop sale before. Several of them were students from our current “MAKE A FILM” Class, and they proved themselves to be great production assistants, as we got an early start on teamwork before our shoot later this month. Running any kind of event, you’re going to follow the same steps for making a film – planning, set-up, running the event, and breakdown.

We sent David and Anthony, a couple of black working class guys in their late 20s, around to blocks where they had never been with stacks of the stoop sale map flyers to give to some of the other sites that had registered. When they got back David said, “Once we told people we were with Brooklyn Young Filmmakers, they were like our friends. It was something, people’s thankfulness. They were like, ‘You’re doing things to not only benefit you, but to also benefit us.’ ”

Also liking the idea very much was A.R.T. NY on S. Oxford, which registered and was on our FGInfoX Stoop Sale map. They have been liking the idea so much – that they had already been doing it for the last five years (!) on a small block size scale. I only learned this after the stoop sale day when I talked to Jerry Homan, A.R.T. New York’s building manager. (http://www.art-newyork.org/index.php/programs/real-estate/south-oxford/ )

A.R.T. NY houses a number of arts organizations, many of which have costumes and props they want to get rid of each year. The building’s non-profit tenants have been doing an annual stoop sale and letting their block know in advance so individual households can come out on the same day and do stoop sales. Jerry said, “ The stoop sale is definitely great community relations and we love the idea of doing it as part of a larger neighborhood-wide FGInfoX stoop sale day. One way we have increased foot traffic to our stoop sale is by advertising with the nursing home next to us and the church around the corner. Their staff and members always enjoy coming out.”

COMFORT SPREADER

Joan, my next door neighbor gave us the great Bungee Office Chair we’ve got for sale above. And when her eye caught on the brand new unopened ice tea maker we had for sale (donated by another neighbor who got it as a present and hates ice tea) Joan gave us a sweetened cash donation (she's got her name in our film credits!). Joan and her son sat with us for a while, and after she had gone in, not ten minutes later she comes out and offers all of us (4 board members and three other volunteers at the time) ice cold bottles of refreshment. (And yeah, it was the first Saturday in many Saturdays with a warm sun and no rain -- did I say we were blessed?)

I was talking to Joan about our excitement over the online map SNAP had created. Joan started talking about her own online experiences with promoting her work. She proudly told me that an organization she started has been review on citysearch.com http://newyork.citysearch.com/review/47310472 and of the 150 reviews that have been written about the organization, 145 have given the organization the 5 star rating (that the highest!). Four gave it 4 stars. When I looked at the one reviewer who gave it the lowest rating, I saw he starts by saying he had never visited the organization -- but was suspicious of it because it had received such outstanding reviews! What is the organization? It’s the all women run earlyabortionoptions.com . After Joan told me this I could see my neighbor was a habitual comfort spreader.

THE SERIOUS ONES

Even though making money is not the every thing of our FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day, we take it as a challenge – how do we make more money? Remembering the people who bought the more high-end items (anything $10 and up), it is clear they were on a mission.

One woman had been going from stoop sale to stoop sale looking for a floor lamp -- just the right floor lamp – and the only lamp we had was it! A pair of men’s roller derby skates fit perfectly on the feet of a guy who had been longing to participate in a roller disco in Williamsburg (http://www.downandderby.org/mainsite_nyc.php ). I didn’t think there was a big market for the slightly rusty mini stilts I myself had gotten at a stoop sale, taken to our office and then to two stoop sales (finally accepting I was not going to learn how to walk above the world). But that is part of what makes stoop sales great -- the odd find that someone might really want. And this year the first person to handle the stilts stepped right up on them and stilted over to our cashier.

The woman who pulled up in a loaded small car, headed directly to the old wooden paint splattered easel I had donated (never used it, but loved the Van Gogh look of it). She was moving the last of her things from our neighborhood to Bay Ridge where she had more room for her painting. She asked, “How much?” . I said, uh, $10. She looked at it critically, “ I can’t fit it in my car.” I said we can unscrew it and break it down into a couple of pieces. She said, “Ok, and here’s $20 because it’s worth it and I want to support BYFC.” As we unscrewed the slightly rusty screws from the base so we could fit it in her small car, she said, “It’s definitely got history. I know I’ll get right to work on it!” After she put the pieces in her car she came back over to me. She said, “This is really embarrassing, but can I ask for $5 back from the $20 I gave you. I’m starving and I don’t have any more money. I need to eat something before driving to Bay Ridge.” I said sure and gave her $5 back and Mildred, a BYFC board member, gifted the hungry artist one of her famous magic brownies.

Someone donated to Brooklyn Young Filmmakers some exceptional vases and decorative bowls that we didn’t sale. We needed some serious seekers who were looking for what we had. Next year our FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day Map will link to pictures of these beautiful finds. And next year maybe we’ll be able to tell the two guys who were driving round in an old Mustang from stoop sale to sale where they can find record albums.

OH YEAH, DO YOU REMEMBER THE ONE ABOUT PUBLIC HOUSING

C’Allah, a BYFC board member who lives in Whitman Houses, passed out stoop sale map flyers in public housing. He said a lot of people asked, "What's a stoop sale?" and then they most said, "Why isn’t there a stoop sale in public housing? Why do we have to go all the way over there?!"

They were totally right to feel slighted, but there was nothing we could do about it this year. Individuals can’t sale on government property. We approached the Fort Greene Park Conservancy and asked if public housing residents could do a stoop sale on beautiful recently rebuilt plaza at the corner of Myrtle and Washington. We were told that other than the Greene Market on the Dekalb end of the park, there was no selling allowed and no room for discussion.

We had tried the Willoughby Senior Center which is on the campus of public housing, but is run by a program under the Dept of Aging, not the New York City Housing Authority, and has freedom to do things NYCHA facilities can't. The Willoughby Center had hosted Brooklyn Young Filmmakers film screenings as part of the SONYA Stroll in May. But they have a very small paid staff that is already over extended and they had done the two day SONYA Stroll as volunteers. It was too soon to ask them to volunteer another weekend day.

Next year we want things to be different. I recently met with Paul Palazzo, Chair of the Fort Greene Association, and he said, "People in the community were talking about the FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day and liking the concept. But it needed more advance calendar time for households to sign up to do a stoop sale and more publicity to get people going to the stoop sales. The FGA can help get the word out earlier next year about the 2nd Annual FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day."

One of the wonderful things about trying is you make friends and you learn.

Above is the Google map for the 1st Annual FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day. Imagine more red pins (for non-profits) and more blue balloons ( for indivdual households) and green balloons (for other events), until almost every block in Fort Greene has one. Now you're talking the 2nd Annual FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day!

COMMUNITY CASTING CALL FOR ACTORS & CREW: Sign-Up This Saturday At Our FGInfoX Stoop Sale ----- Community Filmmaking Entry 6/24/09

2009-06-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

In July 2009 Brooklyn Young Filmmakers will be shooting "THE WAITING ROOM" , a short narrative film. We are inviting local residents to be involved in our “Community Filmmaking”. This weekly blog column will keep you updated on our next steps, introduce you to the volunteers and students already involved, and let you know how you might get involved.

Waiting for Things To Grow

The Children's Garden

at the new Ingersol Houses Community Garden

**************************************

FORT GREENE INFORMATION X-CHANGE
STOOP SALE DAY!
SATURDAY, JUNE 27th, 11:00am-4:00pm

Come Out & Support the Growth of

Our Community Filmmaking Project

(which is similar to yard sales)

“Yard sales are where you go to find something you didn’t know you wanted.
Yard sales are where you go when you want stuff to find you.” – Richard Rubin

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers and Fort Greene SNAP are organizers of the Fort Greene Information X-Change Stoop Sale Day on Saturday, June 27th, which will give small volunteer-oriented neighborhood non-profits like ours a unique way of promoting our work – while running a stoop sale to fundraise for a special project. The special project Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is fundraising for is our next Community Filmmaking Project -- "THE WAITING ROOM". At our stoop sale -- in addition to bargaining with you over our wonderful junk -- we will be screening outdoors (in a special little bubble - come check it out!) the three films we have produced and telling you about our next Community Casting & Crew Call (see more info below) .

Other participating neighborhood non-profits include Brooklyn Child & Family Services and A.R.T. New York (and a number of the arts non-profits housed in its S. Oxford facilities). Individual households in the neighborhood are also participating. For an Online Map of the FGInfoX Stoop Sales (Brooklyn Young Filmmakers will be on S. Elliott Place, between DeKalb & Lafayette):

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=114264678009539317888.00046d023aa01a5af863a&z=15

********************************************************

ACTORS, CINEMATOGRAPHER, & GAFFER

WANTED FOR SHORT FILM

MUST BE RESIDENT (OR STUDENT) IN
FORT GREENE / CLINTON HILL

( NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY FOR ACTORS

But what a great experience you’ll have! )

Pointing at photos of the location we will be transforming for "THE WAITING ROOM": Anthony Wright (who has written a script BYFC is considering for a future production), Paula Philip (writer of the original script "THE WAITING ROOM") and Trayce Gardner (co-writer of the shooting script) from BYFC's "MAKE A FILM" Class.

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is producing “THE WAITING ROOM”, the story of a couple whose relationship is shattered when secrets and betrayal are revealed in a waiting room. We will be shooting this low-budget short film at Brooklyn Child & Family Services on Rockwell Place (near Fulton & Flatbush) on Saturday, July 25th (alternate date: August 1st). Primary rehearsals and production meetings will be held on Tuesdays evenings, July 7, 14, 21 (& possibly 28th).

Our production team will be made up of BYFC students (who range in age from 16 yrs to 58 yrs) from our “MAKE A FILM” Class Series (where the script was developed), emerging filmmakers, and community members – maybe you.

Deadline for actors to apply:

Monday, July 6th.

Deadline for cinematographers and gaffers to apply: Friday, July 10th.

No pay for actors, small salary for cinematographer and gaffer. Meals provided during the all day shoot.

CASTING CALL

FEMALE / 25 yrs / Caucasian
Hilary: A nice person who is also attractive, smart, and a young executive in the fashion industry. She is newly pregnant (not-showing) with her fiancé’s baby.

FEMALE / 40s / African-American
Kimberly: Director of a green non-profit organization. Independent and dignified. Distressed from her inability to have children. Married for eight years to Michael.

MALE / 40s / Caucasian
Michael: Ambitious, stylish investment banker. Married to Kimberly, desperately wants an heir.

MALE / 50s / African-American
Nurse: A tall big guy with a gentle-yet-firm-in-control demeanor.

Extras:

FEMALE / 30s / African-American**
Mother: Content pregnant woman who plays with her two year old son. (Actor does not have to be pregnant.)

MALE / 2 yrs / African-American**
Little Boy: Happy bright little boy who plays with his mother.

(**Only participants from Brooklyn Child & Family Services can audition for the “Mother” and “Little Boy” roles.)

To apply you must fit one of the character descriptions and have a Fort Greene / Clinton Hill address. Send us either an acting resume or if you have no experience a short summary of any kind of performing or artistic experiences you have had and why you are interested in acting. Everyone must send a photo. Resumes must include a phone number.

CINEMATOGRAPHERS & GAFFERS

You must have a Fort Greene / Clinton Hill address, a resume and a reel of work (can be online) .

All applicants apply to:

Email: classes@wearebyfc.org or

Mail: Brooklyn Young Filmmakers

c/o 62 S. Elliott Place, 2B,

Brooklyn, NY 11217

(This Community Filmmaking Project is made possible in part by support

from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs,

administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC))

Gardens grow on the campus of public housing

& small dreams come true

The children make a bird house, Home Sweet Home

The gift of a lily shows the new plants how to grow

PEACE

THE EARTH MOVES IN PUBLIC HOUSING: Good Grows Across the Street from New High-Rises -- Community Filmmaking Entry 6/10/09

2009-06-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

In July 2009 Brooklyn Young Filmmakers plans to shoot a short narrative film. We are inviting local residents to be involved in our “Community Filmmaking”. This weekly blog column will keep you updated on our next steps, introduce you to the volunteers and students already involved, and let you know how you might get involved.

What are you seeing? Sure, some happy kids shoveling wood chips at the new Ingersol Houses Community Garden -– But what is that lumpy shape on the left? Above the shoulders of the first two children! Has some intergalactic species landed in Fort Greene?!......No?……Ok, it’s only an international species: The Tree Huggers .

The Tree Hugger Project, created by two Polish artists, was the featured environmental art project at the 2008 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Poland. The sculptures, made from twigs, branches, vines, sticks, and other natural materials, are meant to remind us that humans are still very much part of the natural environment. One of the installations at the conference was “Lonely Tree, Lonely People”. A line of woven tree hugger sculptures stood in front of a tree and passers by were invited to join the long line -- and think for a moment about what it would feel like if there was only one tree left to hug. You can look at pictures of the lines: http://www.treehuggerproject.com/ .

The special Tree Hugger installation above is called “The Red Balloon – A Homage to Marc Chagall”. To see the tree from the other side to get the red balloon part: ( http://www.treehuggerproject.com/events/myrtle_avenue.html ). Trees are a wonderful thing. I like to hang from trees. I like the image of a black man hanging from a tree being replaced; replaced by the image of a family hugging a tree in pursuit of a rising red balloon.

But anyway, how did the Tree Huggers get to Ingersol Houses?
Well, the creation story is that the Tree Huggers were installed in Fort Greene as the kick-off for Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project (MARP) new public art initiative (http://www.myrtleavenue.org/) . The installation above is in the new Ingersol Community Garden, which is located on Myrtle Avenue ( two blocks up from Flatbush between Prince and Navy). The second Tree Hugger installation in Fort Greene is near the campus of public housing on the green island triangle at Myrtle and Carleton. Go take a look!

Kate Briquelet, a reporter for the New York Times Fort Greene blog, shot a video of the garden groundbreaking (http://fort-greene.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/a-garden-for-ingersoll/) .
She stands deep in the wood chips with Blaise Backer, MARP Director

Clap!-Clap! And Three Ra’s!!!!!!!
Ra! For MARP
Ra! For the Ingersol Tenants Association
Ra! For the NYCHA Ingersol Houses Grounds Keepers

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Center is happy to continue* with our applause for other local organizations that are bringing creative activities to the campus of Fort Greene public housing. These activities are pleasing both public housing residents and their neighbors from the surrounding Fort Greene community, and creating a mutual comfort zone where all can meet and dialogue.

The Ingersol Community Garden crew
paint signs and haul wheelbarrows

For more Ingersol Community Garden pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myrtleavenue/sets/72157619455295394/)

* Two weeks ago we applauded South of the Navy Yard Artists for adding a site on the campus of public housing to their annual SONYA Stroll (a tour of artists studios and public spaces featuring their artwork): http://fginfox.blogspot.com/2009/06/patience-community-filmmaking-entry.html

MEETING US:

I got a late start on the morning of Saturday, June 6th. At 10:20 am I pulled my bike up next to a line of bikes leaning against the iron fence next to the new Ingersol Community Center on Myrtle. In the wide green lot that the iron fence surrounds, a table was set up under a portable awning. Spread across the field, involved in different tasks, I counted ten people. I was happy, until I looked closer. I realized that there was only one black person. She looked like she was a retired person, everyone else was younger.

I checked in at the table and was put on the task of helping to drill and screw the planks to make raised garden beds. When I had a chance, I went over to the other black woman and spoke to her off to the side.

“Hi. A beautiful day, right. This is a beautiful thing. But you’re the only one! You’re from Ingersol, right? I live on S. Elliott, hey. This is such a good thing! Where is everyone? Do you think they’re going to come?!"

I learned that the woman I was talking was Edie Tucker (she’s in the picture above of the four women – the one holding the round decorative stone).

Edie: I’m glad to see you! I was wondering when someone else would come -- you know what I mean.

"Everyone here is nice, and it's great they turned out to work. But we need some folks from here-here. You know if they don’t turn out, the talk around here tomorrow will be, 'Oh the white folks are even taking over our yard now to make their garden.' "

Edie: Oh yeah. But we have been meeting and talking about this. I’m hoping people start coming out as it gets later.

We both went back to work. I enjoyed shoveling the compost, then wheeling it over to dump in the new beds. I love community gardening in a big city. We need physical grounding in both our bodies and spirits that only earth can provide. We all need this grounding if we want to be able to make meaningful changes in our lives – especially if we have scant economic resources and are up against so many odds.

As I shoveled and chatted with whoever was working at my side, new gardeners continued to join us. Color flowed in of all ages; kids, kids with parents and senior citizens. Ingersol Houses was well represented when I left a couple of hours later.

You can only know how beautiful this all was, if you know the anguish that residents in Fort Greene public housing have experienced. They watched helpless as their inexpensively priced stores that were conveniently located across the street, were torn down and replaced by luxury high-rises. The shadows that these new imposing structures cast over public housing can give you the feeling that, some time soon, everything’s going to be taken over.

Working in the Ingersol Community Garden was like saying: “Hey, wait. Something grows in public housing that everyone can care about. We don’t feel like we live shadowed existences when we put our hands into the soil and plant our future."

I spoke after this first gardening day to Meredith, MARP Director of Community Development, who along with Joanne, a co-worker, have been the MARP foot soldiers moving this project along.

Meredith: We’ve been working with the Ingersol Tenants Association for a while trying to get this going. Then we got a grant and the donation of wood and compost from the New York City Housing Authority. We’re dreaming that this is the first of many community gardens on the campus of public housing. There are so many green fields between the buildings!

The Ingersol Tenants Association has been committed to the project from the beginning. And Hiram Mendez, the Ingersol groundskeepers superintendent, and his staff, are our “Super Stars”! They drove their truck to the Bronx and picked up the load of compost. They then drove the truck as close to the Ingersol garden site as they could and dumped the load of compost on the ground. Next they used their tractor in a number of back and forth trips to move the compost to the garden site.

Well there you have it, how the earth was moved in public housing.

It’s nice when you have your own backyard and can sit outside in the most casual clothes on a hot night, barbecuing and storytelling. But when you don’t got, there’s community gardens. I helped to start a garden on a vacant lot years ago on Dean Street when I lived in Park Slope, and I worked for two years with the community garden on Dekalb, between S. Elliott Street and S. Portland. New York’s community gardeners are also community activists who see gardens as a bridge between people.

I grow a garden in front of the building I live in on S. Elliott (see last week’s blog entry for a report on my visit to the Fort Greene Park Greene Market to look for plants -- and my subsequent shock: http://fginfox.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-july-2009-brooklyn-young-filmmakers.html ). I know growing a garden that’s right on a public street is as big a passer by pleaser as having a baby or a dog.

C’Allah and I have started talking about how wonderful it would be this summer to screen Brooklyn Young Filmmakers films in the Ingersol Community Gardens. I’m gonna bring up that idea at: the next Ingersol Community Garden meeting this Saturday, June 13th at 10:30am. Hope you can join us. You can call MARP for more information (718) 230-1689.

( I am reminded of our high hopes for bringing people together when I watch the awesome "The Sound of Music at Central Station in Belguim" video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k )

Myself and C’Allah Coombs, a BYFC board member and
Whitman Houses resident, help to move the earth in
the new Ingersol Community Garden

BYFC SCAVENGER HUNT: Do a green thing by donating saleable items that you are not using to Brooklyn Young Filmmakers for resale at our June 27th stoop sale to help us fund our July film project (that’s one way to get your name in the film credits!). We are now accepting donated items for our sale. If you would like to make a donation, contact us at: fginfox@wearebyfc.org (718)935-0490.

NEXT WEEK: The BYFC Community Casting Call for "THE WAITING ROOM"

SO WHAT IF IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT --- Community Filmmaking Entry 6/3/09

2009-06-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

"SO WHAT IF IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT" -- Find out what happened when the BYFC Director visited the Fort Greene Park Green Market -- Below under MEETING US

“Hey, what’s In the Box?!”

“Is it something I would want – that nobody else has?”

Find out June 27th!

FGInfoX STOOP SALE DAY!
SATURDAY, JUNE 27th, 11:00am-4:00pm

“Yard sales are where you go to find something you didn’t know you wanted.
Yard sales are where you go when you want stuff to find you.” – Richard Rubin

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is organizing the Fort Greene Information X-Change Stoop Sale Day on Saturday, June 27th, to give small neighborhood non-profits (including Brooklyn Child & Family Services www.bcafs.org , and Fort Greene SNAP www.fortgreenesnap.org) a unique way of promoting their work while running a stoop sale to fundraise for a special project. Proceeds from Brooklyn Young Filmmakers own stoop sale will help us with our Community Filmmaking shoot in July. (At our stoop sale we will be screening the three films we’ve produced and doing a reading of the script we will be shooting in July!)

We are also inviting Fort Greene neighbors to come out that day and hold their own household stoop sales that we will publicize as part of the FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day. (We encourage participating households to donate up to ten percent of their proceeds to a special project of their block association or to one of the small neighborhood non-profits participating in the FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day, but it’s not required.) If your household wants to do a stoop sale on Saturday, June 27th, you can contact Brooklyn Young Filmmakers to have your block included on the FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day map. We will start distributing the map throughout the community the week before the stoop sale day. We also are advertising the FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day in newspaper and online community calendars.

Our hopes are beyond raising money. We plan to heavily flyer and promote the FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day to residents in Fort Greene public housing, who can’t do stoop sales on government property. Stoop sales are fun because strangers spend time talking to each other and trading stories as they bargain over junk/precious possessions. Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is doing it front of the building I live in on S. Elliott Place. I’ve been polling my neighbors and a number of households will be doing stoop sales and giving a donation from their proceeds to S. Elliott’s annual summer block party and pig roast. So our S. Elliott block is definitely on FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day map. Want to add your block?

If your organization or household would like to participate in the Fort Greene Information X-Change Stoop Sale Day, contact Brooklyn Young Filmmakers: fginfox@wearebyfc.org (718)935-0490.

ARE YOU READY TO ANSWER THE RIDDLE? How can you contribute to Brooklyn Young Filmmakers next Community Filmmaking Project by giving up something you don’t want?

BYFC SCAVENGER HUNT: Do a green thing by donating saleable items that you are not using to Brooklyn Young Filmmakers for resale at our stoop sale and help us fund our July film project. (that’s one way to get your name in the film credits!). We are now accepting donated items for our sale.

GUIDELINES FOR DONATING:

- No perishables
- Items must be clean and have a suggested total selling value of at least $25
- Items need to be organized in boxes or bags
- Electrical items need to have been recently tested by you
- If you are able to drop off items, we can arrange different times throughout the week. If we need to pick up from you we will be arranging several pick up days in the weeks of June 15th and 22nd.
- You need to give us a list and an estimate of the value of the things you are donating in advance so that when we receive the items we can give you a thank you letter for your tax purposes.

If you would like to make a donation, contact us at: fginfox@wearebyfc.org (718)935-0490.

MEETING US

Last Saturday I finally got around to clearing out the last of winter debris from the plot of earth in front of my apartment building. Time to plant the garden. I headed towards the Fort Greene Park Green Market at the corner of DeKalb and Washington Park. I hadn’t been there since Spring ’08.

As I walked up Dekalb nearing the corner of Washington Park, I was surprised and happy to see so many artisan booths lined up with colorful and intricate wares. Then I heard jazz music and rounded the corner to see the nodding and swaying musicians. I felt the party coming on and smiled. In the area where the farmers were selling plants, there were so many people gathered around the tables that I would have to wait to get close. So I started wandering down the line of stalls on Washington Park that sell food and produce.

Suddenly I froze mid-way down the crowded walkway. In front of me another black woman was approaching. She passed me, and I shut down for a moment. I realized that I had passed maybe one of two other black people in the crowd that had seemed like one or two hundred. I then spent the next half an hour walking up and down the market counting black people. When I finally got to fifteen I stopped. My reality had shifted. Standing in the middle of the green market, I felt like I was in a white community --- not a mixed community or a black community.

I went to mostly white schools and as an adult I have often chosen to live in mostly white communities, so being one of the few is normal to me. When I moved to Fort Greene in 1998, suddenly life was different. I was in a mixed community (still mostly black) and it was bustling with culture and passion. I felt like all parts of me could be recognized and nourished here.

Maybe the half hour I spent in the market last Saturday was a fluke, and as soon as I left floods of color would start entering the marketplace. I knew if I went up into the park I would find a truer mix of the people in the neighborhood. But during those moments standing in the marketplace among a mostly white crowd, I wondered what had happened to the dream.

I continued walking down Washington Park pass where the market ends. As I walked towards Myrtle the festive sounds of the market became faint and vanished. There was silence behind me as I walked the empty three quarters of that long-long block. I reached the corner of Washington Park and Myrtle and happened to look down at the lamppost. A small low hanging sign invited people to go down the block to the market. I turned and looked back behind me down the block, way back. I couldn’t see anything. From the corner of Myrtle the market did not exist.

Across Myrtle opposite Fort Greene Park is public housing, where Brooklyn Young Filmmakers has had an office in the Whitman Community Center since 2005. I knew many of the items at the market could be considered luxury items that residents there couldn’t afford.

I turned back and started walking back to DeKalb. As I neared the market again, this time I noticed a man standing by himself on the edge of the sidewalk, a hundred yards before the stalls of the market began. His stand was built out of two stacks of boxes. Leaning against the stacks were displays of different colored miniature guitars.

No one was approaching him, though an occasional child walking by with a parent would look shyly towards the cute little guitars. I greeted the man and he strummed his little guitar for me. I was happy to hear his music. - Trayce, BYFC Director

COMING ATTRACTIONS IN NEXT WEEK’S BLOG:
Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Community CASTING CALL

for our July film shoot.

PATIENCE --- Community Filmmaking Entry 5/18/09

2009-06-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers participated the weekend of May 16th and 17th in the SONYA Stroll, curating an intergenerational multi-media art show at the Willoughby Senior Center in the campus of Fort Greene public housing.

“IDENTITY BOXES” by Benjamin Banneker High Students

From Ms. LeAnn Iverson’s art classes

INSPIRED

We picked up our SONYA packet (maps, balloons, small signage) on Friday from the house of Kathleen Hayek the coordinator of the stroll. SONYA (South of the Navy Yard Artists) is an all volunteer neighborhood non-profit like Brooklyn Young Filmmakers. And Kathleen is the octopus, with many arms out, coordinating all the rapidly moving (or refusing to move) pieces. And in-between and beyond that she’s an artist. Though the focal point in her living room on Friday was the table and boxes of SONYA materials, our eyes strayed to the mysterious and beckoning paintings and sculptures on the walls. Kathleen had turned her house into a gallery space to be one of the stroll sites. ART LIVES AMONG US – It Is Us and U – Welcome! (Kathleen doesn't actually say that, but it's the vibe.) We took that spirit and our packet and headed for the Willoughby Senior Center in Fort Greene public housing. (For Kathleen’s profile and a glimpse of her art visit: http://www.sonyaonline.org/ )

PUTTING THE SHOW UP

We stopped by Banneker High to pick up two dozen freshly painted and completed “IDENTITY BOXES” from students in Ms. LeAnn Iverson’s art classes. Back at the Willoughby Center, Jenny Chan, a volunteer at SNAP (http://www.fortgreenesnap.org/ ), opened up a black bag and out jumped ten GIRLS, GIRLS,GIRLS – framed comic inspired drawings of American princesses celebrating an innocent era. That Friday afternoon I finished mounting the pre-schooler art from Brooklyn Child & Family Services. I stayed away from visible tape and staples and cheap cardboard backing, knowing their value could be elevated if they were put in an attractive context:

The work of two 17 months old artists is given a lift

by the cloud and sky posterboard used to back them.

Below the paper flowers and vase done as a class project

by two year olds becomes the centerpiece for a dinner table.

These paintings by 3 yr olds are headed for MOMA

after their show ends at the Willoughby Center.

THE WEEKEND - WHO CAME

The turnout wasn’t what I had fantasized. About twenty strangers on the SONYA Stroll came through, and then there were a few friends, a few people connected to Brooklyn Child & Family, SNAP, and Banneker High (the other organizations whose artwork was displayed), and BYFC students and volunteers. We thought we would get a lot of the seniors who come during the week to the Willoughby, but surprisingly only a few came by.

Was it worth all the time and effort that went into putting the show together? I bought a small bleeding heart plant last year for the garden I grow outside the apartment building I live in on S. Elliott. It did so-so and at the end of the season I thought it had died. To my surprise it not only came back this year, but it has quickly grown into a big flowering bush. Seeds were planted with our participation in the stroll and it's up to us to make it worthwhile.

“PATIENCE IS ALSO A FORM OF ACTION.” - Auguste Rodin

LOST AMONG LITTER – FACTORS WE HAVE TO THINK MORE ABOUT

When was the last time you went into public housing?

The Willoughby Senior Center is half way down the block from the corner of Myrtle and N. Portland. Before you get to the center you pass large stretches of fenced grass surrounding six storied public housing buildings set back from the street. You can’t post any signage along there. When you get to the Willoughby Senior Center you wouldn’t know what it was because it’s housed in what use to be a childcare center, and what you see from the street is the fenced playground area with kiddy bars. You have to turn off the street and go on a walkway between a public housing building and the side of the center to get to the entrance.

We weren’t prepared for how hard it was for people to find us at 105 N. Portland. It was not until late in the day on Saturday we realized that someone had taken the SONYA balloons we had tied along the center’s fence on N. Portland to lead people off the street, and the small SONYA signs that might have been helpful posted in a storefront window, were hard to notice on the long stretch of fencing.

When we closed up on Saturday and left the Willoughby Center walking on N. Portland towards Myrtle, I noticed that a stretch of sidewalk and grass was full of litter – which is not the case at all when you go deeper into public housing and look around the entrances to buildings and the common outdoor areas. It was just on this disconnected stretch where many people passed by on the street.

I wondered, did some SONYA strollers get to N. Portland and start down the block trying to find us, only to turn back. Do people equate public housing and litter with danger? Next time, if needed, plan to pick up litter.

Those who did visit us on the stroll saw some incredible real estate -- sitting on table tops. Two seniors at the Willoughby Center decided they were going to have their fantasy houses -- even if they had to build them themselves. It took over a year, but here they are:

210 Ellis Drive

"My Brooklyn Ranch House"

Geraldine Ellis, Artist

888 Sills Lane

"My Spanish Villa"

Ruby N. Johnson, Artist

TINA AND C'ALLAH STROLL

During the stroll weekend I sent some of our crew out to other stroll locations to pass out our flyers and invite strollers to come to the Willoughby. Tina Flemmerer, the emerging filmmaker from Germany who was cinematographer and editor for "POINTING FINGERS", set out with C'Allah Coombs, who was raised and lives in Fort Greene public housing, and who was one of the actors in "POINTING FINGERS". Tina later gave an account of their stroll:

TINA: When we walked out of the projects down Myrtle Avenue, C'Allah was saying 'Hi' to everybody and everybody knew him. I really liked how relaxed and open he was with his thoughts. When we crossed Fort Greene Park, suddenly it was me who became the talkative one and he became quiet. He was more watchful and reserved and there was no one he knew to greet. We both loved the art we saw and how the artists were there to talk. C'Allah had never been on the stroll either, and he kept saying how amazing it all was, and that even though it was the tenth year of the stroll, how he had not known about it.

The Banneker teachers and students who we invited to present had not known about the SONYA Stroll either. Now they know. And the stroll gave us an opportunity for creative exchange. Our film "POINTING FINGERS" features a character who sings a HipHop song he wrote. We heard that Banneker's Participatory Action Research Team, led by their teacher Askia Egashira, had a multi-media presentation on the "Relevancy of HipHop for High Achieving Urban High School Students". We invited them to view our film and give their presentation.

Banneker students listen to a presentation on poster art and the BYFC goal

of creating a multi-layered story in one frame (one poster).

Then they gave their presentation in poetry and statistics.

Their conclusion was that the spirit and love of HipHop wasn't dead, but that the

"business" of HipHop, with the promoting of gangster rappers and sex, had deadended.

We concluded the weekend with a screening of "POINTING FINGERS"

and a reunion of some of the cast and crew.

THE MONDAY AFTER THE STROLL WEEKEND

The artwork was still up when the seniors streamed into the center for lunch and bingo. I was told later by the Willoughby staff that the seniors spent a lot of time looking over the artwork. They were amazed by the work of the 17 month olds, wanted to buy the "Identity Boxes" by the Banneker students, and had discussions about the BYFC film posters.

– Trayce

p.s. i will be taking a holiday next monday - so check back first week of june for the next posting

(NOTE: This article was originally posted on 5/18/09, but because of a format problem it had to be re-entered)

GOING WHERE YOU HAVEN’T BEEN -- Community Filmmaking Entry 5/11/09

2009-05-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Poster and
Postcard Art will be on display as part
of the SONYA Stroll this weekend.

BYFC SCAVENGER HUNT: Reminder - Starting June 1st we will put up the details about how, what, and where to donate to items for BYFC’s Fort Greene Information X-Change Stoop Sale that will happen June 27th (see details from our 5/4/09 posting: http://fginfox.blogspot.com/2009/05/strategy-we-got-community-filmmaking.html ) the week of June 8th we will start accepting your donations of items for our sale. Start saving the things you don’t want – but others would value – and help us fund our next Community Filmmaking shoot in July.

UPCOMING: "GETTING STARTED IN FILM", the second class in the BYFC "MAKE A FILM" Class Series, starts May 19th, 6:00pm-9:00pm ($120), and runs on consecutive Tuesdays through June 30th, at NYC College of Technology's Division of Continuing Education in Downtown Brooklyn. It's a comprehensive introduction to how to organize a low-low budget film shoot and how to be a good production assistant. To register: (718) 522-1170

(Students from the current BYFC "INTRO TO SCRIPTWRITING" Class)

MEETING US:

The 10th Annual SONYA Stroll next weekend features among its artists the Brooklyn Young Filmmakers who will be showcasing its work at the Willoughby Senior Center, which is located on the campus of Fort Greene public housing. This will be the first time a location in public housing will be featured on the SONYA Stroll. We hope it will create new foot traffic across the neighborhood as neighbors are iinvited to go places they haven't been before to see some great art and emerging talent! Art by seniors from the Willoughby Center, Banneker High School students, children from Brooklyn Child & Family Services, and volunteers from Fort Greene SNAP will also be featured. Banneker students will also do a special presentation on HipHop culture. (See below for full schedule of events.)

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers will be screening the films it produced and discussing Community Filmmaking. The aspiring scriptwriters from the BYFC Class “INTRO TO SCRIPTWRITING: Blueprint for Making a Film” will also do readings of their short scripts on Saturday, May 16th. Comments about the “INTRO TO SCRIPTWRITING” from some of the students:

TINA: “This is my third screenwriting class and all three teachers have had a different take on screenwriting. My first teacher was very character based so for him it was all about developing the back story. The second teacher was all about plot driven scripts. It was all about the inciting incident and where you go from there, the next beat, and the funny twist at the end. This BYFC class is like a very perfect combination of both of those classes. There’s emphasis on the plot points but we never neglect the characters. This class for $90 is incredibly cheap when I paid $1,000 for each of my other classes. (Tina is a 2008 graduate of the City College undergrad Film Program and the cinematographer/editor for BYFC's third film, POINTING FINGERS)

COREY BROOKS: “As an actor I’ve been mainly doing theater. Being in this writing class, even more than acting in a film, has made me realize how important putting down lots of visuals – what actors will do, what they see – is so important to moving the story along. (Corey is one of the three actors starring in POINTING FINGERS.)

SONNY RODIGUEZ: “This class is showing me how to incorporate visuals into a story. Now when I’m reading a story in school about anything, it could be in a newspaper or a book, I’ll go “Hmmmm. How can I show this visually? What would the person be doing with his hands?” And other people will say those details don’t matter, and I say in my Scriptwriting Class it does.” (Sonny is a junior in high school.)

JOHN DARGAN: “This scriptwriting class has been one of the best classes I’ve ever taken in my life. I’ve done a number of Youth Media programs: Reel Works http://www.reelworks.org/; Downtown Community TV Junior Fellowship Program www.dctvny.org ; William H. Crosby Future Filmmakers Workshop at NYU http://about.tisch.nyu.edu/object/FutureFilmmakers.html and I’m doing the Summer Arts Institute this summer. I took the last BYFC “GETTING STARTED IN FILM” Class where we did Pre-Production for POINTING FINGERS. As we workshoped the script we did a whole chart of James Senior’s life going way back to what he did as a young man, even though the script is about him as an old man. Now that I’m taking the “INTRO TO SCRIPTWRITING” Class, I’m realizing now that everything goes back to the development of the script and how important that is. With my past media programs we did storytelling through film, but we didn’t go all the way back to the beginning where we try to understand where the characters came from. We only discussed what the characters were doing in the story we were going to shoot and we put storyboards together and we shot off that. The films ended up with a lot of quotes and music. I see know that the characters and their dialogues weren’t real.” (John is a high school junior who has worked on the crew of the last two BYFC film productions.)

WANT TO GET REAL?

JOIN BROOKLYN YOUNG FILMMAKERS

NEXT WEEKEND ON THE SONYA STROLL!

THE 10th ANNUAL SONYA STROLL
SATURDAY, MAY 16 & SUNDAY, MAY 17 12noon – 6:00pm FREE!
(Visit www.sonyaonline.org for a map of all the locations featuring artists work in Fort Greene/Clinton Hill)

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers
SONYA STROLL
at the Willoughby Senior Center
105 N. Portland
(across from Fort Greene Park, between Myrtle & Park)

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Viewing of Art on Display
12noon - 6:00pm
- Artists from the Willoughby Senior Center (model houses / jewelry / dolls)
- Brooklyn Young Filmmakers (posters, postcards, still photos from film shoots)
- Beryl Benbow, Paintings (Local Artist & Fort Greene SNAP Volunteer
www.fortgreenesnap.org )
- Jenny Chan, Drawings (Local Artist & Fort Greene SNAP Volunteer
http://www.fortgreenesnap.org/ )
- Brooklyn Child and Family Services, Children's Art (http://www.bcafs.org/)
- Benjamin Banneker High School, "Identity Cubes" (http://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ )

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Presentations in the Main Hall
1:00pm Screening of BACK STREETS (32min, 2008) & Discussion of Production History
2:00pm Screening of FROM PAWNS TO KINGS (5min, 2008) & Study Guide Discussion
2:30pm Screening of POINTING FINGERS (Work-In-Progress,15min, 2009) & Discussion
3:30pm Showcase Reading & Analysis of Student Scripts
5:30pm Refreshments and networking
6:00pm Closing

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Viewing of Art on Display
12noon - 6:00pm (See May 16th)

Presentations in the Main Hall
1:00pm POINTING FINGERS Screening
Followed by a multi-media presentation by Benjamin Banneker High School Students:
"HIDE N SEEK, HIPHOP WHERE YOU AT"
Examining the Relevancy of HipHop for High Achieving Urban High Schoolers Today
2:30pm FROM PAWNS TO KINGS
Reading of script, screening of film and discussion of study guide
3:30pm BACK STREETS
Screening followed by discussion of production history with Adonis William, Director & Trayce Gardner, Executive Producer
4:30pm POINTING FINGERS
Reading of 2 scripts – Original student script and shooting script
Screening of film / Intro of cast & crew
Audience input into development of study guide
5:30pm Refreshments & networking
6:00pm Close of Event

*The Willoughby Senior Center is sponsored by the Fort Greene Council, Inc.

STRATEGY, WE GOT --- Community Filmmaking Entry 5/4/09

2009-05-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

(PA Cora Melvin marking the slate and Script Supervisor

Rosemary Roman taking notes during the BACK STREETS shoot)

BACK STREETS (32 mins, 2008)

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers /

Adonis Williams Production

Watch the trailer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qETIMBe8QBA&feature=channel_page

LAST WEEK’S RIDDLE: How can you contribute to Brooklyn Young Filmmakers next Community Filmmaking Project by giving up something that you don’t want?

BYFC SCAVENGER HUNT : Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is doing a giant Stoop Sale and we want those things of value you might have stored that you don’t want. Our stoop sale will be Saturday, June 27th. Starting the week of June 8th we will be accepting your donations of items for our sale. (We will put up the details about how, what and where to donate in our June 1st blog posting – but you can start saving your valuables for us now!) Proceeds from the sale will help us shoot our next film in July. Our stoop sale though is about more than us. Read on:

FGInfoX STOOP SALE DAY (1st Annual!), SATURDAY JUNE 27TH: Fort Greene has the Fort Greene House Tour and the SONYA Stroll that take you walking down blocks in the neighborhood you’ve never been to view beautiful homes and challenging artwork. Well here comes the Fort Greene Information X-Change Stoop Sale Day! Walk across the neighborhood bartering over your neighbor’s junk while helping to fund the special projects of neighborhood non-profits.

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers, under its Fort Greene Information X-Change (FGInfoX) Project, is organizing this stoop sale day to also give non-profits a unique way of promoting the work they do. (Block associations and community gardens are also invited to participate.) We will create a neighborhood map showing the “stoops” of participating non-profits and listing the special projects they are fundraising for. Non-profits are encouraged to put together sidewalk presentations about their work (brochures, photos, computer presentations, etc.). Other non-profits that are joining our stoop sale/information day include: Fort Greene SNAP, the Willoughby Senior Center, and Brooklyn Child & Family Services. Participating non-profits will contribute to the cost of publishing the FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day map and help develop a media and outreach campaign.

What Your Organization Will Get Out of Participating:
- A fun project for your volunteers to coordinate
- A new way for your staff, volunteers, and supporters to contribute to your non-profit by donating items for the stoop sale
- Contact with neighborhood residents who might not otherwise make contact with your organization
- Positive media
- Great photos!
- $$

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is inviting non-profits from all sides of the park to participate in the day and be on the map. The FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day has the potential of driving new foot traffic across the neighborhood. Residents from public housing and surrounding working class areas will venture into the more affluent areas of the neighborhood if they have a map showing them where they can find bargains they can afford. More affluent residents will be given a fun reason to go to places in the neighborhood they have never been.

If your Fort Greene/Clinton Hill non-profit is interested in participating in the FGInfoX Stoop Sale Day, contact BYFC at: fginfox@wearebyfc.org 718 935-0490 . Please give us your organization’s name and address and a contact name, email, and phone number.

MEETING US:

FOR REAL! IN THE FLESH!
BROOKLYN YOUNG FILMMAKERS

At the 10th ANNUAL SONYA STROLL*

SATURDAY, MAY 16 & SUNDAY, MAY 17

12noon – 6:00pm
WILLOUGHBY SENIOR CENTER**

105 N. Portland Street
(across from Fort Greene Park, between Myrtle & Park)

(*Visit www.sonyaonline.org and download the map!)

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers will screen its films:

BACK STREETS (32min., 2008) Watch the BACK STREETS trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qETIMBe8QBA&feature=channel_page

FROM PAWNS TO KINGS (5min., 2008)

POINTING FINGERS (15min., 2009)

Our Students will do readings of the scripts being considered for the July BYFC Community Filmmaking Shoot

PLUS!!!!!

The Willoughby Senior Center Wacky Tacky Fashion Show!

Senior Art including: Giant Model Homes (With Plumbing!) Made Out of Cardboard & Recyclables, Handmade Dolls & Jewelry

Artwork by Volunteers from Fort Greene SNAP

by Kids from Brooklyn Child & Family Services

NEXT MONDAY: The complete schedule of BYFC events for the SONYA Stroll

**The Willoughby Senior Center is sponsored by the Fort Greene Council, Inc.

"DEAR GOD" --- Community Filmmaking Entry 4/27/09

2009-04-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

(HipHop artist Ashanti Baptiste, wearing the peaked cap and beard,

sits in on a class session on the set of POINTING FINGERS)

- photo by Jenny Ducaud

In July 2009 Brooklyn Young Filmmakers plans to shoot a short narrative film. We are inviting local residents to be involved in our “Community Filmmaking”. This Monday blog column will keep you updated on our next steps, introduce you to the volunteers and students already involved, and let you know how you might get involved.

BYFC SCAVENGER HUNT : RESULTS! We told you last week that we needed 2 minutes of original instrumental music to use in the opening credits for POINTING FINGERS. Thank you for helping to make our first online scavenger hunt successful!!! We have received 15 responses from high school and college students and professional musicians. Some people attached music samples or directed us to where you can find their music online. Other people offered to send CDs. Half of the people responding had been referred by someone else who had read our blog and then told them about it. We are currently responding back and have already heard some good stuff. Next Week: Brooklyn Young Filmmakers will announce its next Scavenger Hunt. RIDDLE: How can you contribute to Brooklyn Young Filmmakers next Community Filmmaking Project by giving up something that you don’t want? Find out next week!

GRANTS FOR ASPIRING SCREENWRITER/DIRECTORS: If you are a double threat – both writer and director – the Jesse Thompkins III Foundation for Young People in the Arts (JT3 Art) is offering a $2,000 grant. Applicants must be U.S. Citizens between the ages of 18 and 30, and residents of Brooklyn. Deadline for applying is June 22, 2009. More information on the awards program can be found at www.jt3art.org .

MEETING US:

My mind is struck in one place as if cemented
And when I try to escape
I’m just prevented
Feels like
The thoughts I think about be demented
Should have been in a crazy house getting sentence
-- from “DEAR GOD” by Ashanti Baptiste

A HipHop Artist Talks About Basketball Courts, Fort Greene Association, & BAM

The son in POINTING FINGERS sings Ashanti’s song “DEAR GOD”, which also plays over the closing credits. I’ve known Ashanti as a neighbor for over nine years. He’s been volunteering with Brooklyn Young Filmmakers for a number of years and last year he joined our board. Ashanti read my interview with C'Allah from last week and had a lot to say.

ASHANTI: “I’m use to hearing about fights on the court. But what caught my attention when I read your interview with C’Allah last week was that he said the kids were crying. And that he didn’t learn why they were crying until they told him what the opposition coach had said to them. That was deep. You read the newspaper and hear there was a shooting and you get used to it. But you don’t hear that young black kids are crying because someone calls them “nigger”. In my experience, most of the time I see kids quick to fight, “Who the hell R U F talking to?!” As if they really know their history enough to get seriously mad about what is meant with the word.

Hearing that these kids cried touched me. I think what really hit them was the other part of what was said – that they “ain’t got nothing down here”. The last few years the intense gentrification has gotten close to them. The stores where their families shopped were torn down on Myrtle and the luxury condoms are now towering over the projects from right across the street. When these kids come out of the projects and look across the street, all they see is the rich people moving in and that there’s nothing really for them here anymore. The adults have long known this, but now the youth are really realizing that this neighborhood is getting pulled away from them and they can’t do nothing about it.

The youth tend not to care if it don’t have to do with name brand clothes and money. In the neighborhood they’re not paying rent. They might fight over who rules the sidewalk in front of their building, but beyond that they aren’t thinking “this is our neighborhood”. But now the youth are saying “Yo, we getting moved out and there’s nothing here for us.” The basketball court is like the last thing for these black youth – not hiphop, not rap – the basketball court. C’Allah’s kids don’t have a regular place to play. And then to be on a basketball court in your neighborhood and have a white coach tell you that you don’t have nothing down here in the projects, that’s deep. That’s powerful.

To me it brings joy to know that these kids were crying because it makes me think they are reachable and that’s a good start. Also from how they played the game, it was good strategy. The way they stayed a little behind the other team for three quarters and let the other team get prideful thinking it was all over. Then in the fourth quarter C’Allah says the kids came out like gangbusters and started stealing the ball and quickly pulled ahead. They were practicing THE ART OF WAR. That’s a book by Sun Tzu, a Chinese philosopher, that everybody on the streets and in the business world reads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War ). It teaches how to get through a battle without physically having to indulge in it. It’s a mental game. And that’s basically what those kids played. That was smart. Was that C’Allah’s strategy?

No it wasn’t his. He kept thinking they were losing the game. It was his kids strategy, or maybe the 17 yr old coach he had put in charge.

ASHANTI: Our kids are ready to think. But they and their families need the dialogue and exposure that things like BYFC’s Community Filmmaking could bring. As a black male who’s grown up on the streets of Fort Greene, I see Brooklyn Young Filmmakers as a vessel that could be the backbone to help promote and connect. It’s very hard to get the different classes of people to come together. It’s like it’s taboo. I attended the Fort Greene Association meeting last Monday. They talk about wanting to bring all the neighborhood together. I’ve been to at least 12 of their meetings over the last 9 years. I always feel like I’m the only one coming from the poor community who’s sitting in the audience. They have a lot of connections. I feel angry sometimes because it’s not the right people there.

It might not be ALL people there. But when you say the “right people” that makes it sound like the people who attend are wrong and that they don’t care about the other neighbors who don’t attend.

ASHANTI: I’m not going to say they’re wrong or have bad intentions, but their ideals don’t match up with most of the people I know in Fort Greene. I don’t see the FGA advertising in the projects and on Myrtle. I don’t see them figuring out how to reach the people who are not on computers.

Have you seen this flyer? I picked it up in a store on Fulton. It’s about registration for the Brooklyn Pitbulls Youth Football, which is for kids 5 – 16 yrs old. The Fort Greene Association, along with Councilmember Letitia James and State Senator Eric Adams, have put up money to reduce the fees for kids to register (for more info: brooklynpitbulls@msn.com / www.eteamz.com/brooklynpitbulls ).

ASHANTI: No I haven’t. That’s a good thing. It’s a start. But what we really need are things that promote dialogue among the different people if a real connection is to take. And rather than people who control resources shaping everything, it would be good if there were more grassroots people having a say. The bottom is where the truth is at. You gonna get all feelings, the good, the bad, and the angry. But if we let it out we can turn it into something positive. But most institutions, like BAM, are starting from the middle and top, not from the bottom up. BAM has a lot of great programs for students in schools, but what about the kids in the neighborhood and projects right around BAM, the kids who really need something good and new to happen.

BAM was speaking at the FGA meeting about the new building they are going to put up where the Salvation Army building is. It’s going to have a theater and programs to teach theater and filmmaking for both youth and adults. You think they are going to come up with their own version of community filmmaking? It would be nice if they would talk with Brooklyn Young Filmmakers if they are headed in that direction. They’ve got buildings and money, and we’ve got a strategy for making things happen from the bottom up.

(Hear more about Ashanti's thoughts on the neighborhood in a Neighbor Sketch we posted last year: http://fginfox.blogspot.com/2008/09/neighbor-sketch-ashanti-baptiste.html )

People
Curse u out
Say that u don’t exist
Then scream your name in vain
And claim they the holiest
Dear God
Wherever u are
Whoever u are
Dear God
Wherever u are
Whoever u are
U probably chill with the stars
-- from “DEAR GOD” by Ashanti Baptiste

"SUSAN BOYLE'S GOT TALENT" ---- Community Filmmaking Entry 4/20/09

2009-04-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

(Actors C'Allah Coombs and Shai Shackley on the POINTING FINGERS set)

Photo by: Jenny Ducaud

BYFC SCAVENGER HUNT : INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is seeking 2 minutes of original instrumental music to use in the opening credits for POINTING FINGERS (2009, 15 min.), a story about family members pointing fingers of blame at each other, only to find out that they don’t really know each other – or themselves. trayceg@wearebyfc.org (718) 935-0490. (See last Monday's entry for more about our hunt for music: http://fginfox.blogspot.com/2009/04/community-filmmaking-41309.html )

*************************

LATEST HEADLINES:

Susan Boyle’s got talent.

(Now, what about those out-of-control

black kids you’ve heard about?)

When Susan Boyle stepped out on stage last week on "Britain's Got Talent" (the Brit version of "American Idol") the audience started snickering. The frumpy, ruddy-cheeked, unemployed forty seven year old announced she was going to sing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical Les Misérables. The snickering became wincing among both audience and judges, as they braced for the painful and off key. Susan Boyle opened her mouth. She spread her arms (wings?). The Sound emerged and made all thought stand still. It was melodic. It was knowing. It swelled with the heroic and the generous. The woman judge cried and Simon Cowell’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way. The matronly live alone woman who’s never been kissed penetrated the souls of those who would scorn her with her song and presence. She was not the lesser being. She was more than they. (Watch the performance that 50 million have now viewed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY )

Susan Boyle’s got talent. Obama is our president. Slumdog is a Millonaire and Oscar winner*. There is speculation that maybe now, you’ll all be ready to meet – really meet – those out-of-control black kids you’ve heard about (fear to meet) from the projects. (*See the 3 part article on SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE http://fginfox.blogspot.com/2008/12/slumdogs-in-obamaland-take-on-community.html)

MEETING US:

Now I had the blues before sunrise
With blues standing in my eyes
It’s such a miserable feeling
A feeling I do despise
Seems like everybody
Everybody’s down on me
-- “Blues Before Sunrise” by Leroy Carr

Last Tuesday in our free “I Love Film” Class at the Willoughby Senior Center I gave participants the assignment of coming up with an idea for a one scene, one location, short screenplay. It was C’Allah’s turn. He said his script would be about a fight that breaks out on a basketball court between a young player and the two coaches on an opposing team. I asked C’Allah, does this take place during a game? Because you know you’re limited to using just 2 – 3 characters, no extras, when you write your first draft.

C’ALLAH: “Yeah I know,” (sucking the air through his teeth and sighing) “but it’s a real story. The kids I’m coaching were in a fight on the court and the police were called.”

I said, Oh No! I knew how important the kids were to C’Allah. He’s been rounding up young male teens from Fort Greene public housing since the Republican Convention in 2004, when there was an execution style killing on the outdoor basketball courts near the old Ingersol Community Center. That’s when C’Allah picked up the ball and started running his own impromptu tournaments. Recently a new league for junior high kids (11 - 15 years old) formed in the neighborhood. C’Allah put together a team made up of kids he and his son play ball with and other kids recruited through the grandparents at the Willoughby Senior Center where he volunteers.

C’ALLAH: "It was our first game of the season. We were playing at the junior high school on Park that use to be known as “Sands” when I was growing up and went there. This was home for us, I looked at the opposition and I was surprised. It was a good mix, a really good mix of kids – white, black, Hispanic – and I thought that was great! Our team is all black, so they don’t get the exposure to different kinds of kids. Then I looked past the kids and was surprised again. Their two coaches had red faces, beer bellies and beards. They looked like they’d just come out of the hills of West Virginia! They didn’t look like any basketball coach. Didn’t look like anyone from Brooklyn."

I guess you haven’t been to all parts of Brooklyn.

C’ALLAH: "Guess Brooklyn’s a big place. Well, I was feeling good. We had the advantage. After the first two minutes of the game though I was thinking, whoa, we’re over our heads! The opposition, they was good! They went out ahead and stayed ahead. They were disciplined. They played really well as a team. That’s not saying we were terrible. I was actually videotaping it, so I had an eighteen year old who’d been playing with me for years coaching the game and he kept the game close. Our kids stayed about 6 points down for most of the game. But we could never catch up.

I felt bad, ‘cause I knew our training wasn’t as good as the other team’s. Part of it is that we can’t get any indoor court time in the winter to practice. There’s the Farragut Community Center indoor court, but they got their teams already booked into it. I have to tell my kids to be patient because they get so frustrated they start bouncing the ball in the hallways in the buildings they live in, and I tell them they can’t do that.

As we were losing to my surprise our team was actually very confident. They kept telling me, “Don’t worry C’Allah. We’re going to win.” And I kept saying to them, “You’re playing like you were hanging out all night partying.” They were always just a step behind the other team who were really hustling. I kept looking back over at the beer bellies and thinking that they were doing a great job of coaching their team. I didn’t like it though that their kids started doing a lot of trash talk at our players.

We were trailing by 6 pts going into the final quarter and our kids had never been ahead, but they were confirming their promise to me, “Don’t worry C’Allah, we’re gonna win the game.” And they lived up to their word. They came out for that last quarter like gangbusters. They started stealing the ball from the other team. Our team went ahead by 8 points! There was only one minute of play left and things had reversed.

Our guys started to trash talk the other team who were now looking confused. There was a loose ball and a scuffle broke out. One of the opposing players took his hand and mushed one of our players in the face. A fist fight broke out. The two opposing coaches ran straight at my player and started growling something at him. Then all hell broke loose. My kids started crying. I mean, literally crying. I was shocked. Then they were yelling, “This is Fort Greene. You don’t come down here talking to us like that! We fight coaches too!” My kids chased the coaches and their team! Ran them into the locker room and locked them in.

The director of the tournament announced that our team, the Willoughby Little Bees, had forfeited the game because of fighting. My kids got even madder. They stayed on the court and wouldn’t leave. I gathered them together and angrily told them how they had embarrassed me with their behavior. That’s when they told me what the opposition coaches had yelled at them and made them cry. The coaches had told them, “That’s why you niggers ain’t got nothing down here.”

The tournament director had called the police, who came to escort the visiting team out of the neighborhood. A couple of the police knew some of our kids because they had given them warnings when they were hanging out in the hallways of their buildings playing and making noise. The police officer said, “Oh yeah, we know these kids. They’re a bad bunch.”

The police led the other team down the front stairs of the school. We were behind them. The opposition coaches stopped and pointed at me and said, “It’s all your fault! You don’t have control of your kids. You shouldn’t have let that young guy coach. That just set up trouble.” My response was, “You didn’t say a word about it when you were winning all game!” My friend Ali knew to pull me away."

Susan Boyle has talent and people living in public housing are not who you think they are. Check in next Monday for another update on Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Community Filmmaking Project.

peace & future

Trayce, BYFC Director www.wearebyfc.org

COMMUNITY FILMMAKING - 4/13/09

2009-04-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

(Tina Flemmemer, POINTING FINGERS cinematographer,

consulting with script supervisor Jermaine Mitchell)

In July 2009 Brooklyn Young Filmmakers plans to shoot a short narrative film. We are inviting local residents to be involved in our “Community Filmmaking”. This weekly Monday blog column will keep you updated on our next steps, introduce you to the volunteers and students already involved, and let you know how you might get involved.

BYFC SCAVENGER HUNT : INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is seeking donation of the use of 2 minutes of original instrumental music to use in the opening credits for POINTING FINGERS (2009, 15 min.), our third film production that is in the final editing stages. The film closes with an original rap song donated by a Fort Greene artist . For the opening credits we are looking for something in a different vein – older generation with a slower beat, possibly blues or jazz or maybe classical, can have edge to it. We are open to being surprised. Love to hear what you have: trayceg@wearebyfc.org (718) 935-0490.

MEETING US

TINA: “I was a very melancholic kid. Every time I felt like crying I would go in my room, shut the door and listen to the audiotape of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. I would bawl. It was so sad what happens to him.”

I was totally taken back when Tina said this. I tried to imagine her as a seven year old in the small town of Schwandorf listening to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in German. When I was ten (before Tina was even born) in Oakland, California, reading about slavery made me too sad, so when I was melancholic I read Holocaust stories.

TINA: “My therapist thinks this is a problem, my melancholy. When he said you have “chronic melancholy”, I objected. Do Americans think melancholy is always bad? Sometimes Americans are too smiley, and not because they are really feeling it. When I am melancholic I can have my most creative spells.”

Tina started volunteering with Brooklyn Young Filmmakers after she attended our January 2007 INSIDE MAN Conference at LIU. At the time she was a junior in the City College undergrad film program and living in Washington Heights. Tina initially helped us with graphic arts on publicity materials. When Brooklyn Young Filmmakers decided to started producing its own films, she was one of the emerging filmmakers who helped to make it possible. She was cinematographer and editor on FROM PAWNS TO KINGS (5 min.) and POINTING FINGERS (15 min.). Tina fell in love with Brooklyn while working with Brooklyn Young Filmmakers and moved close by to Bushwick. She graduated from City College last summer and will be going back to Germany in July when her visa runs out.

TINA: “Volunteering with Brooklyn Young Filmmakers has allowed me to step outside of the insular student world and helped me feel connected to a real community in New York. The way I’ve been welcomed with open arms by everyone working with BYFC has impressed me. In Germany you would not necessarily get that kind of welcome as an alien. Working with Brooklyn Young Filmmakers has also taught me a lot of things I didn’t learn in film school where the focus is on the technical. By helping to produce these two BYFC films I’ve learned that you can actually pull it off with little or no means. It has taught me how I can look beyond film people to just people in the community for help making a film. ”

WHAT THE NY TIMES DIDN’T COVER:

We were grateful that the New York Times recently covered Brooklyn Young Filmmakers producing efforts with an article on the Times Fort Greene blog:
http://fort-greene.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/making-it-easier-to-make-a-movie/?emc=eta1 The Times highlighted how Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is giving residents of all ages in public housing, and other working class people, a chance to work on film productions. It was unfortunately the Times did not choose to cover the other part of what Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is focused on – getting the more affluent residents in our community to pitch-in and work alongside those in public housing to produce Community Filmmaking projects. Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is committed to speaking out about the economic divides in our community (in most communities) not to be negative but to be positive. We are developing this creative neighborhood bridging project to give diverse neighbors a chance to interact and get to know and trust each other. Please stay tune for our Monday blog postings.

peace & future,

Trayce, BYFC Director

DROP-IN: You’re invited to drop-in on the free MAKE A FILM Class Series Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is offering on Tuedays in April and May, 1:30pm-3:30pm at the Willoughby Senior Center, 105 N Portland (half a block from Myrtle Avenue), in Fort Greene public housing. All ages of adults and teens welcomed. For more info: classes@wearebyfc.org (718)935-0490.

MARK THE DATES:

Free Public Screening of BYFC Films As Part of SONYA Stroll
Brooklyn Young Filmmakers will be participating in the tenth annual SONYA Stroll (www.sonyaonline.org) the weekend of May 16th and 17th. We also will be doing public readings of the scripts being considered for our next film project and inviting you to give input.

"TEACHING STORIES"

2008-12-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I completed the rewrite of POINTING FINGERS, an original student script by Frank Mills.

Why you ask is a teacher rewriting a student’s script?

Don’t teachers just give critiques and simple suggestions and leave it to the student to make any changes, so that the script will continue to reflect the student’s actual level of development?

What about when you have a student just learning the basics of scriptwriting who can barely afford to pay for your low-cost 5 session class? What if it’s a student, such as Frank, who also works full time and has family obligations? Frank happens to be about 60, but if he was one of our 23 or 35 year old students, it would still be the same. He will probably never have the time or resources to devote to fulltime study of scriptwriting. But what if he has good story ideas, interesting characters, and important themes he wants to see discussed?

Filmmaking is a collaborative art. It is also an expensive and complicated undertaking. You make films from good scripts that not only have interesting stories but that also use all the visual tools of filmmaking. I always tell my scriptwriting students, it is common that a screenwriter will sell a script – and then the producer or director will bring in another scriptwriter to rewrite it.

HEY! THAT’S MY SCRIPT!

What?! Hey that’s my script! How can they do that?!

First off, you need to understand what a script is. It is not a book. It is a blueprint – and yours is the first draft of the blueprint, not the finalized blueprint that they are going to build the film from. A film is guided by the director – it is the director’s vision (and sometimes a producer with a very strong opinion – and the $ – will also have the right to influence the vision).

In the BYFC “Intro to Scriptwriting: Blueprint for Making a Class” the students all write one scene, one location, short scripts that can be shot as low budget films. I often get students who come up with interesting situations that might have a twist in the end and/or they write great dialogue and describe interesting characters. They almost always write about people and situations that are close to their lives: family; police; school; work; relationships/sex; troubles; violence; – and now and then humor.

What the students usually don’t get is a deeper understanding of why their characters do the things that they do, and a clear understanding of how every character in the scene might be impacted by events. (Understandings the average person dealing with real life usually doesn’t have.) They also don’t know yet how to tell their stories through a creative use of location, set, props, wardrobe, and gesture. They usually have their characters telling everything through dialogue. So when a director and actors and production design team get the script they are going to say –

“Why does the character do that? What’s the back story on the characters and the situation? What daily tasks does the doctor, or the waitress, or the mother, or the prisoner actually do? How might the character’s daily routines be upset by the situation? Why can’t we have the character do something to show her state of mind rather than have her explain it in dialogue? Let’s make this character younger so we can market to that audience too. I think this story would really work well if we put it in a night club instead of a church – but that means we need to change….. ”

Unless you have worked on a scripted film, you won’t understand how the “word” (or script) often gets transformed (lost) in the active ingredients that go into creating a real world for the camera.

OUR SCRIPT LAB

So it’s been great to be able to take students from working on rough written blueprints to actually making a film. We’ve developed our own SUNDANCE-like lab, where we workshop the script, having students act out the scene as everyone analyzes step by step, word by word, all the options of how a person might act or react.

I consider our script workshops to be vehicles for teaching people about life, and we start off with their stories. But ultimately working with professional writers and filmmakers, we hope to show them how their stories can be made into art – into good films – and into “teaching stories” for others.

STAY TUNED: We will give you a chance to think about the questions raised in our script workshop. We’ll be putting up soon the original student script POINTING FINGERS and asking you how would you solve some of the plot points and deepen the character development.

CROSSING THE GREAT DIVIDE

2008-12-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don’t know, Fort Greene public housing is made up of 3 developments that border each other. They are called Whitman, Ingersol, and Farragut. Brooklyn Young Filmmakers has an office in the Whitman Community Center.

As part of our outreach to recruit cast and production assistants from all over the neighborhood for our Community Filmmaking Project, we contacted the Farragut Community Center, which draws many older teens. As I explained the project to the Farragut Center’s acting director, she said she thought a number of teens would be interested in the project – but she predicted that they wouldn’t come for interviews. Why? Because Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is housed in the Whitman Community Center. There is a turf war going on among some of the young people……

How small, how utterly small must the world and hopes of these young people be – if nothing makes them feel important except saying to other young people who live across the way, “This is my block, don’t cross the line.”

The other part of this sense of restriction not being talked about is that most of these kids will probably never walk through the more well off areas of Fort Greene because they don’t feel safe there either – Someone who lives there (or the police cruising by) is sure to say (or make you feel like) "What are you doing here?!"

People who don’t have hope can be dangerous. But even more dangerous than trying to reach them is not trying to reach them. This is not Iraq. This is Fort Greene, our neighborhood, but are you listening to what is happening here? Why can’t we show some concern, some resources, some creativity, some determination in trying to ease the tensions and build new bridges.

Maybe you’re white or just look well-to-do, and you’re thinking, “I can’t go there. If the kids might attack each other, then they are certainly going to attack me. Public housing must be a scary place.” But you’re wrong.

The first time one of my students, a young white woman from South Africa, came to the BYFC office she got lost in public housing, way lost – and she ended up enjoying being lost. She had to interact with the residents she passed to ask for help with directions and she was surprised with how welcoming and helpful everyone she talked to was, as well as how clean and well cared for the grounds of public housing are. To hear more about Phillipa’s experience, you can read the comments she made to after my December 1st posting.

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers has offered to go to the Farragut Community Center and give a presentation about our Community Filmmaking Project, show the 2 films we have made, and answer questions. Maybe no Farragut teen will be interested in working with us – but at least we will make the message clear that we, housed across the way in the Whitman Center, would love to work with them.

SLUMDOGS - Part III (The Final Installment)

2008-12-03T09:22:00.000-08:00

The film SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE was shot in India, and a significant portion of the film takes place in the slums. Slums like we don’t know here – where people literally build villages on mountains of trash. How can you or I identify with India? It’s nothing like what we know.

But that’s not true. If I am cut, I bleed. If you are cut, you bleed. In India, if a slumdog is cut, he bleeds. I guess there is a lot we all have in common, if we want to see beyond price tags and preferred addresses.

And we have to know to look beyond individual circumstances. Yeah it was good schools you went to. No, I don’t know that word and never been to that place. At your family table you had successful filmmakers, businessmen, and thinkers dining. And some of you smell too good, because you never had to scrub something really-really nasty with that harsh-maybe-poisonous- cleanser. But put us eye to eye in a moment where neither of us are rated by circumstances – My look is clear, is yours?

Mostly though, we will never meet eye to eye. If I am serving you, usually your eyes are elsewhere, with good reason, because I’m suppose ta be invisible. So go see a film like SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, in dark and privacy, and meet eye to eye – and have a lot of fun with this heart wrenching-romantic- joyous-only-too-true fairy tale!

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

THE BASIC PLOT: A young man who grew up in the poorest neighborhoods in India becomes a contestant on the Indian version of the American game show – Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. To everyone’s surprise the young man correctly answers the questions, all the way up to the last question with the huge jackpot. But before he gets to this final show, the producer of the show has him arrested because the producer believes that no one who comes from where someplace so poor could possibly know so much. It has to be that the slumdog is cheating!

As the young man is interrogated and tortured by the police inspector, he continues to insist he knew the answers to the game show questions because they happen to be things that he learned out of the very experiences of his life. Finally the inspector plays back the tape of the game show and asks the young man to explain each answer.

What a great way to introduce flashbacks! The film weaves back and forth, from the game show to episodes in the young man’s live, starting from when he was a child, and following him, his older-often-brutal brother, and the girl who is also an orphan (who the young man is destined to love). The film is full of colors and vitality and the humor, (as well as great music and interesting shots).

By the end of the film the young man’s life -- a journey in the face of the most dire obstacles -- is shown to have great value, for it has proven the trueness of his heart. For the people of India, who are glued to TV screens across the country, the young man on the game show becomes the very symbol of hope (with great-makes-you-want-to-fly-out-of-your-seat dance music on the soundtrack for us in the audience).

LIFE-IN-BETWEEN BLOGGING

That’s it for my entry today. Was going to write about the script POINTING FINGERS, the next Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Community Filmmaking Project, but this entry is already long enough.

Plus my mother is visiting soon and that means extra housecleaning. I’m doing a lot of freelance work right now. So this is kinda a challenge, blogging 5 days a week. But we’re going to prove TRUE GRIT (...it was a movie!).

And had to put my cat friend Max down on Monday. Twelve years old, but she was like an overgrown kitten. She was playful up to a couple of weeks ago, then the kidney problems showed and things went pretty quick. I am glad she is resting and left me so many wonderful memories.

Back tomorrow. - T

SLUMDOGS IN OBAMALAND DO COMMUNITY FILMMAKING - Part II

2008-12-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

The day before Thanksgiving I saw SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, the new film by the British director Danny Boyle (TRAINSPOTTING, 28 DAYS LATER, see www.imdb.com for more on his films). By the time the movie was ending we the audience – myself most definitely – were swelling in our seats with the type of communal euphoria (joy) experienced the night Barack Obama was elected our next president. The lessons from SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE that echo President-Elect Obama’s campaign:

- You don't have to be a genius or a rich man to know the answers in life – in fact you can start off as a slumdog*** – and still end up getting life right in a big way.

- Someone who is poor can still make a lot out of what little is given.

- Decency can be inherent (or not) in the individual, regardless of class, race, age, and upbringing.

- Sometimes life is just written, call it fate or destiny or luck. The rich can end up poor and the poor can end up rich.

***Well, what is the film SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE really about? (Plot points please!!!) -- Well that will be in my Wednesday entry – ‘Cause I’m being coached: “A good blogger makes regular entries, keeps them short and provocative, and knows how to coax things out in installments.”

What you get now is what I promised you yesterday – info on how to apply to be part of the next BYFC Community Filmmaking Project!

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers
COMMUNITY

FILMMAKING

PROJECT

For Fort Greene Residents
ACTORS &

PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS
WANTED FOR SHORT FILM
(NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY – But what a great experience you’ll have!)

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is producing “POINTING FINGERS”, the story of a family whose members angrily point fingers of blame at each other, only to find out that they don’t really know each other – or themselves. We will be shooting this low-budget short film at the Shop Talk & Art Gallery in Fort Greene the weekend of January 16th – 18th, 2009 (it’s our celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr’s holiday!).

Our production team will be made up of BYFC students, emerging filmmakers, and community members – maybe you, if you are a Fort Greene resident. Auditions for actors and interviews for production assistants will be held in late December by appointment in the BYFC office in the Whitman Community Center in Fort Greene public housing. Rehearsals and trainings will be scheduled the first weeks of January. No pay. Meals provided during the shoot.

CASTING CALL
James Parker Sr: African- American male, 70’s, stern upright military bearing, walks with cane

James Parker Jr: African-American male, 24, ex-drug addict and frustrated musician, trying to get his life right

Janet Parker: African-American female, 35, striving upwardly mobile businesswoman who is ashamed of her brother and her working class background

To apply you must fit one of the character descriptions and have a Fort Greene address. Send us either an acting resume or if you have no experience a short summary of any kind of performing or artistic experiences you have had and why you are interested in acting. Everyone must send a photo and include a phone number.

PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS
We are recruiting 5 production assistants from the Fort Greene community. We are looking for a diverse group of neighbors to work with us – from public housing and brownstones, all races, ranging in age from 17yrs and older up to senior citizens. To apply send us a one page summary of your background and why you are interested in being part of the project. Include a phone number!

To apply for an Acting Role or

To be a Production Assistant

Send us your application :
Email: classes@wearebyfc.org or
Mail: Brooklyn Young Filmmakers

149 N. Oxford Walk, Brooklyn, NY 11205 or
Hand Deliver: You must make an appointment

(718)935-0490

DEADLINE: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2008

For more info on the BYFC Community Filmmaking Project:
www.wearebyfc.org

(Our Community Filmmaking Project is made possible

with support from the Citizens Committee of New York)

Wednesday: You'll get the plot for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and an introduction to the story we are shooting -- POINTING FINGERS

SLUMDOGS IN OBAMALAND DO COMMUNITY FILMMAKING - Part I

2008-12-01T08:51:00.000-08:00

In Fort Greene we have the ingredients to be Obamaland. By that I mean our extremely economically and racially diverse community has the potential to work well together towards shared local goals. While that’s a lovely thought – it’s also a necessary thought.

BEING READY TO GIVE EVEN MORE, TO ONE ANOTHER

Over the last month there have been several shooting incidents in Fort Greene that ended with death and wounded bystanders. The MoCADA Museum (www.mocada.org) helped to organize a candle light vigil here in Fort Greene on November 25, which was also the 2nd Anniversary of the Sean Bell shooting. Laurie Cumbo, MoCADA founder/director, introduced the purpose of the vigil with an impassioned letter: (excerpts) “…As drastic budget cuts are targeted specifically at education, the arts and the police force simultaneously, it is imperative that we utilize our individual talents to survive……We as “good people” have allowed the “neighbor” to be taken out of the “hood”…… We the “good people” are guilty for going to town hall meeting after town hall meeting and remaining quiet while the moral fiber of our communities have been eroded……My fear is that the euphoria created by this presidential election will cause people to think that Obama will change the world while we sit back and watch….”

BYFC CASTING CALL FOR ACTORS & PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS

The Brooklyn Young Filmmaker call n’ response to this is Community Filmmaking. We are inviting residents from all parts of the community, from public housing to brownstones to schools, to join our students and the emerging professionals partnering with us, and be part of our next short film project. We will be shooting POINTING FINGERS on the weekend introducing Martin Luther King, Jr’s holiday, January 16th – 18th, at the Shop Talk & Art Gallery here in Fort Greene. Tomorrow I will be posting information about our community Casting Call and interviews for Production Assistants, and how you can apply if you are a Fort Greene resident. From now on, 5 days a week, we will keep you informed on how our Community Filmmaking Project is progressing.

FROM THE BOTTOM UP

We would do well to take a lesson from the Obama campaign’s strategy of organizing from the bottom up. As a citizen I volunteered several days to help get out the vote with the Obama campaign in Philly. I was in a group that was placed in low-income inner city areas to knock door to door. Our group was every race and age, parent and child, artist, city planner, and bartender. The easy intimacy among all these strangers made it feel like we were an army of well organized neighbors. We talked to residents at their doors, and they shared stories and told us when their neighbors were expected. We took to calling out to people walking across the street from us and they would call back. Magically we trusted that our lives and happiness were interwoven with these strangers.

(Me, second from right, on election night in Mullane's Grill, waiting for the results with
some other Brooklynites after we had gone to Philly that day to help turn out the vote)

WE LIVE ON THE SAME BLOCK

The quiet S. Elliott block I live on in Fort Greene has struggling working class folks, upper middle class, college students, artists, newcomers and oldtimers and different races. There are the senior citizens who keep a watch over the block and are carriers of the history, and passing by them are babies in strollers who will become the future. Many neighbors know each other and the block association does an annual street closing and pig roast. Maybe you are fortunate to live on a similar block (though I expect the pig roast is unique). Maybe you strive to support diversity on your block, and also in your workplace or by volunteering with worthy projects. But are you getting to know the diverse people in your own neighborhood beyond your own block?

And how do we talk about a block when we’re talking about the imposing buildings in Fort Greene public housing? There is a lot more diversity of income and background among residents in public housing than people outside often think. But it is a lot harder for residents to come together as a community than in the surrounding areas because of the impersonal physicality of the public housing campus. When I was going door to door in low-income Philly neighborhoods it was to small houses, some lovingly cared for, some almost shack-like. But each house belonged to an individual household. It was their turf and statement. In public housing it’s very hard for residents to see the surrounding area outside their own apartments as an extension of themselves. The people in public housing usually don’t even know the wonderful diversity of their fellow residents, much less the surrounding community.

If Fort Greene is to thrive as a community through this looming local and national financial crisis, we all need to believe we live on the same block, and that our fates and happiness are interwoven. We need everyday kinds of vehicles – like Community Filmmaking – that can bring diverse neighbors together for learning and networking.

SLUMDOGS

Which brings us to SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, a new movie, the theme of which completes my message – but that’s Part II and comes tomorrow – along with an announcement about how Fort Greene residents can participate in our Community Filmmaking Project.

THE AMAZING SHRINKING PROMISES

2008-09-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

Trayce was telling me some people were shocked by the anger and conspiracy theories expressed by the guys upset about wealthy newcomers (See “SOME PEOPLE” post). But those thoughts are in a lot of our minds, because all we can do is watch everything change and nobody talks to us.

While I was reading over Tom Hughes’ Neighbor Sketch, I came across where Tom speaks about the $500million condo/supermarket development on Myrtle Ave. To do this development they tore down the neighborhood supermarket and Duane Reade used by residents in public housing. They were promised that the Duane Reade would come back, and a “Gristede” supermarket would be built (though from what I have been told their prices are not up our alley!)

Well the Daily News July 25 issue reported that the $500million project now is reduced to a dwarfing $40million project – without the supermarket and pharmacy that were promised. So where does that leave residents in public housing shopping for their basic needs? A lot of people have to pay a car service now just to get basics. For senior citizens who rely on medication, this makes it almost an impossible mission for them just getting it. Where do these developers get the power to just destroy businesses serving the community and rebuild for wealthy buyers? Where are the promises? Where are the contracts stating these agreements? All I see is the poor being left with empty space and more hardships in surviving.

And sometimes I think the wealthy buyers are being taken for a ride too by these developers. I saw this when Brooklyn Young Filmmakers sent me on the Fort Greene Association’s House Tour in May to get a new perspective on the neighborhood. My first stop was FORTE Condos on Ashland and Fulton, which is spelled with an “e” to give it that European upper class splash of magic. The colossal structure stands like the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the middle of a brownstone residential area. Stepping inside the building for the first time was not at all a rejuvenating moment. The lobby looked just like any other building. It had a corporate vibe. The rooftop was closed due to construction, so my destination was the 26th floor. The view was astonishing, but other than the windows there was nothing interesting about the apartment. The rooms were no bigger than a room in my apartment – and I’m in Section 8! To add some humor, the tour guide stated that the apartment has a $$$MILLION DOLLAR!!! price tag attached with it. And one man shouted out, "A MILLION DOLLARS! THAT’S GREAT!" ……... So you go figure.

Anyway, I understand people’s anger and confusion. That’s why I’m working on this Neighbor Sketches project. I don’t want to feel like we are at war. We have to have a place where we are heard. And we have to have a way to talk to the newcomers to find the ones who want to be living beside us. -- Ashanti (Pat-Riot)

SOME PEOPLE

2008-09-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday the Daily News published a story about the Brooklyn Young Filmmakers “Neighbor Sketches” Project. It focused on the first time meeting of two of the neighbors we’ve interviewed: Ashanti Baptiste and Angelo Cilia. They live only a couple blocks apart in Fort Greene, while being worlds apart in their everyday worlds and where they came from. You can read the article online: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/09/03/2008-09-03_blog_helps_bridge_the_gap_between_fort_g-2.html

Several readers posted comments. I was shocked by the first two entries. Here are excerpts:

GHOSTFACEUP Sep 4, 2008 11:33am we need to chase these newcomers out. Because when you go into their hood they look at you with hate. maybe the street guys need to start robbing these rednecks out of here

SLUGGER Sept 4, 2008 3:33pm Gentrifiers aren’t about helping anybody. The nature of gentrification is about helping yourself to everything. I suspect these community profiles will be more valuable to the police than to Fort Greene residents.

Some people are using the blog-a-sphere to pound on the negatives. I get the anger. We’ve been here living and struggling for years, and now our home has become a tight corner as people with nicer clothes hurry by pushing us off the street (or asking the police to do so). But being full of powerful anger – doesn’t make you powerful. I don’t want to live, and sit, and die in anger – and the other side of this coin – frustration.

That’s why we started the Neighbor Sketches project. I hope GHOSTFACEUP and SLUGGER actually read the sketches. Unlike the Daily News article, which in its limited space focused on the niceness of two diverse neighbors meeting, our Neighbor Sketches give neighbors the opportunity to speak in detail about the situations that make them boil or feel endangered – or welcomed.

It’s always gonna be that someone has a lot more money than me. But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk to each other and find some common ground to be neighbors on. Some of the newcomers moving in are coming here not just for a physical home, but because they like that there are people different than them living here – and they don’t want to see this neighborhood become only people like them. And some of these newcomers have come here because they got pushed out of their old neighborhoods, so they understand.

Not everyone wants to be a good neighbor to someone who has less money. Personally, I want to stay clear of and not think about those people. I’m putting my efforts towards looking for the some people -- who want to know, and look out for, whoever their neighbor is.

On a practical level, if we don’t have much, we have to learn to meet and network with the people who have more. My neighbor might open a door for me if he knows me. So I’m not going to slam a door on him before we’ve even met. And if it has to be me who starts the conversation, so be it. Trayce

NEIGHBOR SKETCH: Daysi Roman(Excerpts from a longer interview)

2008-09-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

I’m 21 years old and just graduated from New York University! I majored in Film & Television at the Tisch School of the Arts. I live near Myrtle Avenue and St. Edwards Street in Ingersol Houses.

How long have you lived here? Eleven years. Before that we lived in Bushwick in a house, which was really different than public housing. I was born in the Dominican Republic.

What was it like going to NYU Film School? There were maybe 20 or 30 of us – students of color – out of a 1,000. This is New York City, right? It was really overwhelming to find so many of one type of people at Tisch. Even though we were all in the art field, they really couldn’t relate to where I come from. I worked 20-30 hrs a week while going to school full-time. I didn’t respect a lot of the people because I felt they were there because their parents were like, “Go to school”. They did not respect the work. But they had all the budget to shoot longer, more complicated films.

What was it like when you moved into Fort Greene public housing? I had come from a neighborhood where the houses were colorful – whitish, yellow, pink and purple! You could have imagination there. When I first came to Fort Greene public housing it was like, “Ughhh! Where am I?!” It was old prison like. Like a graveyard. Through the Police Explorers program I started being involved in the community and knowing what was going on. That’s how I met you and Brooklyn Young Filmmakers.

Are there a lot of kids in public housing? Oh yeah. There’s 6 stories in my building, maybe 30 – 40 apartments. Most people have kids, and maybe 2 to 3 kids per apartment. But I don’t see things advertised for kids or families.

What’s the current atmosphere like in public housing? With all the new development coming up in Fort Greene, people are feeling out of the loop. It’s kinda weird because it feels like new people are taking over the neighborhood, but slowly and quietly. We are set apart. To be honest, it is hard to tell people that I live in public housing. People react as if it is a negative and like somehow I’m suddenly less. After I got that reaction too many times, I started kinda not saying I was from the developments.

Do you go to the small shops and restaurants on Dekalb and Fulton? To Target and Pathmark and the shopping center. I don’t know about the shops in-between. I do go to BAM because of the range of art films that are screened. I love Juniors Restaurant and go there often. I eat out in Park Slope and Soho, but I don’t eat out at any other places in Fort Greene. I really haven’t been exposed to things here.

What kind of publicity do you think public housing gets? Oh, the bad stuff only. The crimes, people getting shot, kids and drugs. There is no communication in the developments or with the neighborhood about the talents, the gifts, and the true spirit of people in the developments. I’m sure there are other people like me, but how would we know.

What do you think about Brooklyn Young Filmmakers concept of “Community Filmmaking”? Do you think many people in public housing would be interested? Yes, definitely. When Brooklyn Young Filmmakers executive produced BACK STREETS, my senior thesis film project, you helped us recruit kids from the Whitman Community Center to be extras. When the kids and their parents came to work on the shoot I think they felt like, wow! People know there’s a big movie studio in our neighborhood and there’s 40 Acres, but this haven’t made filmmaking more accessible for the average person. BYFC wants to bring together people of all classes, races, and ages and have them communicate doing something creative. It could possibly save the lives of those who don’t think they have anything to offer. Maybe my part of the neighborhood won’t get just all that negative feedback. Maybe all the positive things that are not known will be seen. I wish I had this available to me when I was younger – something creative happening right here in the developments. I think it would have helped me with my vision of both the developments and Fort Greene.

What do you think about our doing “Neighbor Sketches”? I think it’s great. Maybe people will find out that people who seem strange to them care about some of the same things.

DAYSI’S FAVORITES: Song: “Everything” by Lifehouse / Movie: PAN’S LABYRINTH / TV Program: The Office / Book: A Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren / Magazine: The New Yorker / Newspaper: The New York Times / Food: Salmon (I can eat it for breakfast!) / Game: Dance Dance Revolution (Play Station) / Superhero: Batman / Article of Clothing: Jeans, nice blouses, and flats / Colors: Blue & Green

Click for full interview.

NEIGHBOR SKETCH: Ashanti Baptiste(Excerpts from a longer interview)

2008-09-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

I’m 29 yrs old and I’ve lived on St Felix Street the last 24 years in a small Section 8 apartment building.

Where do you go in Fort Greene for recreation? I guess me and my friends really don’t use the neighborhood. When I was young, we use to have Big Apple games at Brooklyn Tech, but they stopped those after school programs. I worked in BAM as an usher and saw a lot of operas and different shows from different countries, but it wasn’t really my cup of tea. It sounds sad, but where we’re always at is on the block, in a friend’s house, or in the parks at the basketball courts. You have your neighborhood barbershops like Mr. James shop on Greene, On Point on Hanson, and Changing Faces on Fulton, and just like in the movie BARBERSHOP men go there to hang. But beyond that, I’m stuck. I know people and I’ve been places, but there’s nowhere in Fort Greene I could really attach to now, that expresses us.

What place are you curious to see in Fort Greene? I want to see Steiner Studios, where the big movies is made. SPIDERMAN was made in the neighborhood! How come we couldn’t sit on the sidelines and watch? I took a Brooklyn Young Filmmakers class that got me thinking more about what goes into making films. Then I helped out as an extra and a production assistant on BACK STREETS, the film Brooklyn Young Filmmakers executive produced. That was a great thing.

What’s the difference’s between the two sides of Fort Greene Park? The project side is the forgotten side. It’s like no one’s dealing with that side cause it’s seen as all negative – drugs, guns, gangs, violence – and that’s all people see it as. The Fulton/Dekalb side, the side I live on, is part of the big busy boom. We call it “Las Vegas” Brooklyn. But the people on this side are more out of touch. There are not too many Brooklynites here anymore. Now you have a lot of strangers on the block and nobody speaks.

What do you feel about all the development going on? It’s like somebody’s coming into your home where you lived all your life, where your grandparents lived. That somebody says, “Stand aside. We taking over, and you’re now irrelevant.” I’ve lived here 22 years and they think I’m a trespasser and potentially violent.

Why are you helping with the Fort Greene Information Exchange project? I’m a community activist. I’ve worked with James E. Davis and Kevin Powell. And now I’m helping out with FGInfoX project because it is the bridge to what I have dreamed. I’ve wanted to have a big loud speaker that could reach the whole tri-state area, or at least Brooklyn to start. Maybe someone will read a Neighbor Sketch and then see someone they read about in the neighborhood and the person won’t seem a stranger. Maybe one of these new people sees my profile and they’ll speak to me, and I to them.

What is your dream job? Music. I’m a hip hop artist and songwriter. As an artist I am upset with what the music industry is now and how musicians are portrayed. I’m upset with the people who say they are rappers and just write “rap-crap-nig’-rhyme”.
What’s the most important thing that’s happen to you so far this year? The verdict on the Sean Bell case. As a black man it makes me feel as if my life is a dog’s life. Like I’m worth spit or a crumb. I – we – are way more than that. Way more.

ASHANTI’S FAVORITES: Song: “Long Time Coming” by Sam Cook / Movie: ALIENS VS PREDATOR / TV Program: 24 / Book: “Angels & Demons” (graphic novel) / Magazine: XXL & Popular Science / Food: Hot Wings / Game: Play Station / Superhero: Spawn / Article of Clothing: Military Shirt / Colors: Green, Blue & Grey

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NEIGHBOR SKETCH: Angelo Cilia (Excerpts from a longer interview)

2008-09-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

I’m 37 years old. I’ve lived here on S. Elliot 4 years. Before that I lived in Jersey City for 4 years. I’m originally from Kansas City, Missouri, where my family still lives in the home I grew up in.

How is Fort Greene different from Kansas City? In the suburbs we barely talked to our neighbors. Here it’s so different. People are friendly. People live close to each other and see each other over and over again on the street.

What do you do for recreation in Fort Greene? I love Fort Greene Park and use it a lot. I go to BAM for movies and shows. Last night I went to LIU to see the roller derby – they temporarily converted their basketball court into a ring!

What do you feel about all the development that’s going on?
I just wish all the development would slow down. Looking down Myrtle across from public housing, all those skyscraper apartment buildings are going up. Why are the new buildings going so high! Find another neighborhood, not here. It makes me nervous, because it feels like I’m not going to be able to afford to live here at some point.

What’s are your impressions about public housing?
It’s very different. It’s not as family….But what am I saying? There are families over there too. It just seems like a tougher area than where I live….Maybe it’s my upbringing. I don’t want to appear to be racist, but where I grew up we were always taught which were the “bad” scary parts of town. It was always where African Americans lived. It’s funny about living in New York. You chop down a lot of that because of actual contact with people. Riding daily on the subway has been a way to for me to really see African American families. On the train I see how people interact these people – listen to me saying “these people”! But it’s like any cultural society you haven’t been exposed to. I’m sure my Italian heritage was looked down upon at one time. Like, “Ughh! Never go into that neighborhood – they eat all that stinky garlicky food!” But yeah, it’s a beautiful thing too. You’re like, “Wait a minute! They are family, and they are close-knit, and they are good people.” Now I am in a neighborhood that’s predominately African Americans. At first I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m white.” I felt like I was living in someone else’s neighborhood. But I really enjoy living here and it’s become my neighborhood too. But back to public housing, visually, when I see public housing, I’m not seeing the people. I’m seeing the housing units and they are a little rundown. They could use a little more help in the common areas.

What is your dream job? To be a singer, but not to worry about when my next job is going to come. I sing now as a volunteer with the New York City Gay Man’s Chorus ( www.nycgmc.org/).
Lately when I’ve been at black events, I’ve heard people talking about black men on the “DL” or “down low”. The African American gay friends I have say, “Our community is not very accepting of the gay community”. But other communities aren’t either. Everyone’s community has a little bit of “DL” in them.

ANGELO’S FAVORITES: Quote: “Life is a banquet and most people are starving to death.” From “Auntie Mame” Song: “Moon River” by Henry Mancini / Movie: FINDING NEVERLAND / TV Program: Project Runway / Book: “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search Across Italy, India, & Indonesia” by Elizabeth Gilbert / Food: Mexican (except for Mom’s Italian) / Superhero: Superman / Article of Clothing: Leather Pants / Colors: Red and Green (Christmas!)

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NEIGHBOR SKETCH: Tom Hughes(Excerpts from a longer interview)

2008-09-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

I’m 35 years old. I ‘ve lived in Fort Greene since 2001 and on S. Elliot since 2003. Before Brooklyn, I lived in Bridgewood Queens for 5 years. I grew up in the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx, where it’s very suburban. Pelham Park is the biggest park in New York City, bigger than Central Park, and it has Orchard Beach, so there was a lot of cool stuff to do in nature growing up there.

What’s your family background? I’m half Italian and half Irish. The neighborhood I grew up in though was very old school Italian – sort of a Bensonhurst vibe. I didn’t exactly fit in.

What’s the difference between Brooklyn and the other boroughs?
There’s a very diverse mix of people here, which is very important. There are issues between groups, but I think Fort Greene does a better job of attempting to bridge those gaps than most places I’ve been. It helps that artistic people have been the base of this neighborhood for a long time.

Can you give a bit of Fort Greene history? The Brooklyn Daily Eagle has scanned all their back issues and they’re online. Walt Whitman wrote for the paper in the 1800s. A fascinating thing about that time is the class differences. The brownstones around here were built for middle-class people back then - right alongside a huge shanty town called “Young Dublin”, which was northeast side of the park – this was before the park existed. A lot more about this period – which reflects some of the same issues of gentrification that are going on in Fort Greene today – can be found in this great article by Carl Hancock Rux: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2005/12/local/rich-man-poor-man-a-history-of-fort-gree

Where do you go for recreation in Fort Greene? Mainly Fort Greene Park. I work for the Parks Department and you can find out about events at www.nyc.gov/park . I’m a huge walker. I’ve walked to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. If I could get past the crazy security, I would love to check out Steiner Studios sometime.

Have you walked through public housing? Not through the courtyards, but I have walked on streets like Ashland that go through public housing. The projects need a lot more attention, both from the neighborhood and our elected officials. I’m not a fan of the city planning ideas that resulted in projects like Walt Whitman, Ingersol, and Farragut being so isolated from the surrounding areas. You don’t segregate people of a certain income level in one building and then put people of a high income level way over there. You cut them off from each other totally. It’s one thing to say the prior city planning was bad. Now it seems like the city’s not doing anything. They’re letting the developers build very expensive buildings across the street from the projects. To do that they tore down the only supermarket and pharmacy in the area. They increased the isolation of the projects so much it’s ridiculous. I think this project, the Fort Greene Information X-Change, recognizes one of the primary changes that needs to take place here – better communication amongst all residents. I hope this project can help show the good side of new people coming into the neighborhood.

What important person would you like to spend an hour with? I think it would be pretty cool if I could go back in time and spend an hour with Richard Wright when he was writing Native Son in Fort Greene Park.

As my interview with Tom was wrapping, Ashanti Baptiste came in and we got into a 3-way dialogue about hip-hop – Trayce Gardner

Tom: My favorite era of hip hop was from 1991 to 1996. Anything that was produced in that era, from groups that had one song, like Zhigge, to big groups like A Tribe Called Quest that put out four or five albums. The way I look at more recent hip hop is sort of the "Laffy Taffy" era. The music is less layered. At the same time it seems to me the respect for the lyricist has decreased. Now you can say things really simply – sing song, like nursery rhyme delivery. And what's being said is often about selling drugs and degenerating women.

ASHANTI: White and Asians respect the hip hop culture more than us Blacks and Hispanics. I’m been to their parties and they mostly listen to 90s hip hop. They get into a circle and start having dance battles. Hip hop clubs that I go to that are more Black and Hispanic, when the music comes on you just see bumping and grinding and sex this. We, the dominants of hip hop, don’t respect it. We claim things are ours, but we don’t know the history of it and don’t want to know it.

TRAYCE: Sometimes we can get resentful towards Whites if they start talking about something out of our history, like they don’t have a right to be talking about it.

ASHANTI: They got a right – especially if they know more than you. Just ‘cause you feel like, oh you’re street, you’re from the hood, doesn’t make being ignorant smart.

TRAYCE: I think sometimes the fear was/is that White people will always try to take over. But the only way the world – our world – will change is if we come together with everybody. We need to know how to analyze the situation and not be afraid to say what needs to be said.

ASHANTI: Then we can truly be the people’s army.

TOM: We’ve got to squeeze out the positive, so there are new perspectives.

TOM’S FAVORITES: Song: Beatles, Stevie Wonder, funk/soul, singer-songwriters, early-mid 90’s hip-hop, Sufjan Stevens, Kayne West, and …… / Movie: Godfather Part II / TV Program: “Lost” / Book: “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. / Magazine: The New Yorker / Food: Pizza. The best in the neighborhood is Graziella's at Vanderbilt near Dekalb. / Game: Backgammon / Superhero: The Watchmen and Dark Knight / Article of Clothing: Several pairs of Nike ACG sneakers / Colors: Olive, earth tones

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