August 4-10, 2005

art

sharp focus: Fourteen-year-old Ashley Aveles hones her camera skills at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of the Summer Film Program, a multipartner project for teenagers

Summer Blockbusters

Now in its sixth year, an award-winning film program for teenagers gets a boost from a big funder.

by Jenna Portnoy

The camera pans over a sparse Japanese tea garden. Two women wear black-and-white kimonos of fine silk. Their faces are hidden behind masks of white powder, and red half-moons highlight their lips. The audience soon learns that Hana and Kumiko's sisterly bond is threatened when one falls for a prince who must find a wife before he may take the emperor's throne.

The camera closes in on the beautiful geishas just as a few tourists wander into the frame. "It's OK," says Tim Fryett, an intern at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in whose East Asian Art galleries this scene unfolds. "Maybe they're villagers." The director, 15-year-old Robert Denson, acquiesces and the crew packs up for lunch — pizza. Denson is one of 24 teenagers recruited by outreach groups Congreso de Latinos Unidos and Taller Puertorriqueño for the Summer Film Program, now in its sixth year.

Students from North Philadelphia spend about two weeks learning to use camera equipment and shooting footage. For the next four weeks, they set up shop in the Art Museum, where they come up with concepts, draw storyboards, write scripts and film each other and artwork. Instructors from the youth development organization Big Picture Alliance (BPA) serve as advisers. For the final stage of the program, the teens go to BPA's offices at 13th and Walnut streets, where they get help editing the clips into cohesive short films using Final Cut Pro software. Friends, family and the public can view the films at an Aug. 5 ceremony at Taller.

"If I was home I'd be relaxing, doing nothing, later on trying to find a job," says Victoria Watson, who plays a geisha, as Denson hands the actress a glass of water. They attend Thomas A. Edison High School together. "This is a different kind of experience. We get to see art and do different things."

MAKEUP!: Jeryka Diaz prepares for her role as a geisha in fellow student Robert Denson's movie.

But the program is more than a way to while away the summer months. Thanks to a state grant administered by Philadelphia Youth Network for WorkReady Philadelphia, Congreso pays the students $5.15 an hour, 20 hours a week. This summer the network helped to arrange jobs, internships and job training for 7,000 young people ages 14 to 21, says vice president Melissa Orner. If more businesses volunteer to participate, the network will have enough cash to employ the additional 3,000 teenagers who applied this year.

"People have this conception of kids in this city that is usually negative, but we have a very different view," Orner says. "There are thousands of kids who want to do something positive in the city."

Students in the film program also earn one school humanities credit. Since 1999, the Youth Network has brought in school district teachers to evaluate the students' work, which for the aspiring filmmakers includes not only the final product, but also lunchtime journal entries.

By the end of the six-week program, these teens, many of whom had only been to the Art Museum on school trips, can expertly navigate the cavernous exhibition halls, says museum outreach coordinator Tish Ingersoll. Friday field trips expose them to other learning centers, such as Camden's Adventure Aquarium and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

It's that exposure to culture that has attracted the deep pockets of the Delphi Foundation Project, the philanthropic arm of the Philadelphia-based Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company. The foundation gives the museum about $300,000 annually and this year about $10,000 of that money funds the film project, says foundation executive director Tammy Salvadore. The rest of the program's $35,000 cost comes from Congreso, Taller Puertorriqueño and other partners. Last year, the program won first prize for Best Summer Service Learning Project from WorkReady Philadelphia.

"I hope that they apply what they learned this summer by bringing the discipline it takes to create a film to their math and science classes," Salvadore says. "So many times we hear from teachers that students don't complete their tasks. Well, here they've successfully completed films. They planned out, executed and completed a project."

The program sets out to foster community development and introduce teens to a possible career path, but another happy byproduct is a boost in self-confidence. At first Watson was unsure in front of the camera, but "after a while you just get used to it," she says. "It's just with people I know." She also learned to take direction from Denson, who encouraged her to say her lines "more natural."

Much of Denson's film, titled Konomi ("choice" in Japanese), takes place in the museum's ceremonial teahouse, Sunkaraku. He says filming his story there reinforced his desire to study at New York University or The Juilliard School. Watson and her friend Jeryka Diaz, both 17-year-old Edison seniors, also made a film about geishas. But overall, the themes are diverse. The action-comedy Jeremiah Jones, in which a hero finds a camera in a temple and changes the course of history, was shot in the Indian and Himalayan art galleries, including a pillared hall from a 16th-century stone temple. In the more serious Humanidad, a Spanish-speaking narrator discusses humanity while English subtitles and paintings depicting nature, violence and babies flash on the screen.

Denson's film features traditional Japanese music and Gwen Stefani's "Rich Girl." The drama ends when the prince, Angel, pursues a third geisha, Ayumi, rather than divide the sisters. Ayumi has the last laugh, with Denson's biting last line: "Later, bakas," or, "Later, idiots."

Film premiere, Fri., Aug. 5, 6-8:30 p.m., Taller Puertorriqueño, 2557 N. Fifth St., 215-423-6320.