The Global Parish project is hosting a documentary story telling project. Basically, the idea is to teach young people to tell their stories using camera techniques, documentary techniques and the spoken word form of poetry. That's a mash-up we couldn't quite deconstruct so we let the course coordinator explain…..
Melanie Nyabinghi, Coordinator
"By now we are focusing on creating short films so we have with us some international - really well-known teachers and film makers like Khalil Fantauzzi and his brother Eli who is coming in the country next week to support us in photography and videography, so they are actually going to create photo collages and short films telling their story using spoken word as our formal medium."
"We are using film as our way of sharing what we do, just like what you do with the news right - you tell a short story about what's happening every day in Belize through the film medium."
Khalil Fantauzzi
"We had a whole bunch of young people who are really excited to not only do photography and video but also poetry and so we are talking about the connections of art for young people as a form of expression that is really positive. We actually really started off with Joseph Stamp who talk about the important about stage presence and a lot of times people think about video and photography is being behind the camera but if you don't have the subject matters that you are filming feeling uncomfortable and feeling like they can express themselves then you don't capture the magic. So we talk about the importance and the relationship of being behind the camera and also in front of the camera. I think that this is an opportunity - a lot of times young people have images that are push upon them whether it be through Hollywood or advertisement. This is an opportunity for them to produce their own images that reflect their realities. The homework assignment that I gave them was actually to think about something that Belize has to offer the world and to come up with a treatment where the write the shots and they write who the actors and who are the people in it and so we are trying to draw out their stories so that they feel the importance of their work."
At the end of the course, each participant should have a three minute video….
