Teen Lens 🎬 Woodstock Film Festival's Youth Film Lab

Transcription by Jerome Kazlauskas

[00:00:00] Sebastian Alarcon: I was always like... such like, an odd kid with the creativeness, like, me and my friends had been making short movies, and like my career path before this in like 10th grade. I was so dead set on making comic books... doing something creative. I knew I'd end up here, but the difference about this is... it's professional. It's very professional. This is what I want to do. I love this. I love every second of it. It's the best thing.

[00:00:22] Brett Barry: That's Sebastian Alarcon, fresh out of high school and already directing a documentary. He's part of the Youth Film Lab, a three-week intensive boot camp for area teens, orchestrated by the Woodstock Film Festival for the past seven years. The films these teens produced this past summer will feature alongside a full slate of independent and studio films, panel discussions, and celebrity appearances at this year's Woodstock Film Festival later this month. In July, I checked in with this year's youth filmmakers at a large studio space just off Broadway in Kingston, New York, where three production teams made three short films with the guidance and mentorship of professionals in the field. Professor Gregg Bray welcomed me to the building.

[00:01:13] Gregg Bray: Sure, so here we are at the Center for Photography Woodstock in Kingston, New York. We're at the 7th Annual Woodstock Film Festival Summer Youth Filmmaking Lab, so right now we got a group of young people upstairs ages 14 to 17 divided into three groups who will be making films over the next few weeks, which will premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival this October. My name is Gregory Bray. I'm an instructor at the Woodstock Film Festival Youth Filmmaking Lab and the Associate Professor of Digital Media and Journalism at SUNY New Paltz. Come on in, let's take a look.

[00:01:50] Brett Barry: Behind the door and well insulated from that passing freight train, three teams were deep in collaboration on one narrative film and two documentaries. Editor [Rivi Spitzberg] and director [Josephine Griggs] spoke about their documentary titled, "Search for Expression."

[00:02:06] Rivi Spitzberg: I'm Rivi Spitzberg. This is my second year with the program. I do kind of audio and editing.

[00:02:13] Josephine Griggs: Oh, what are your hopes for this film?

[00:02:15] Rivi Spitzberg: My hopes for this film is that... it's good, and that I'm proud of it, and that I have a fun time doing it, and I have had a funtastic time, so...

[00:02:26] Brett Barry: So you just prompted your friend with a question. It seems like you're a natural interviewer. Tell me who you are and what your role is in this production.

[00:02:34] Josephine Griggs: I'm Josephine Griggs. I'm directing the project. My hope for this project is really just for people to connect to it and to see that there are people out there who care about the arts and who wanted to grow and flourish, and I hope that... I hope people who'll just take something away from it. That's what I hope.

[00:02:53] Brett Barry: And let's backtrack. What is the project?

[00:02:56] Josephine Griggs: So it's a documentary about the importance of the arts and how they connect to our development and healing processes. Also, the accessibility of the arts.

[00:03:08] Brett Barry: Here's an interview clip from that documentary with a creative arts therapist.

[00:03:13] [documentary clip]: Because we are working in nonverbal modalities; we are working with creative therapeutic interventions; we are providing avenues of access to express and heal unspeakable trauma.

[00:03:30] Brett Barry: The music under that interview was a topic of conversation the day I visited the crew.

[00:03:35] Student: Not incredibly noticeable because you want to focus on the people and the documentary, but I don't want to say, "elevator music."

[00:03:42] Josephine Griggs: Something may not... not anything like really electronic and poppy, you know, jazzy. Jazzy, that's what I was thinking. I want a saxophone and a bass. That's what I want. Reminds me of "SNL."

[00:03:59] Megan Sperry: Well, my name is Megan Sperry, and I'm the program director for the Woodstock Film Festival—Youth Film Lab, and so my job is to oversee the entire program. Before the lab begins, I meet with the students to do a brainstorming session, and that's when we kind of just, like, throw all of our ideas and all of the things that they're thinking about, like, at the wall, and then as a group, we kind of focus that down into things that they're thinking about, like three different project ideas. So this year, the three project ideas were... the one that you just spoke to them about, which is a documentary about how the arts can help with healing and issues for teens, whether it's mental health issues or just therapy in general. Different types of practices that help with healing in the arts. There's another documentary that's being made right now by another group who's actually out in the field filming an interview at the moment, about homelessness in Kingston, and then the third project that's in production right now is a narrative film. This idea of how social media has an impact not just on a teen's identity but also on their mental health. The lab runs every summer for three weeks in July, and the way that we break it down is doing this pre-lab brainstorming session, so that when we meet on day one, we really do hit the ground running because the students have already chosen what their topics are and what the genre is and like what the format is, so week one is dedicated to pre-production, week two is dedicated to production, and week three is postproduction, so they have three weeks to make a short film. We usually do a friends and family screening right after the program wraps, and then the films premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival in October.

[00:06:13] Brett Barry: How do students find out about this, and what's the process for applying and being a part of it?

[00:06:19] Megan Sperry: Sure, so each year we have to apply for funding, and then once we know we were, we've secured the funding for the next year. We put out a call through the Woodstock Film Festival website, through social media, through community orgs and partners, and there's an application process, and then we set up interviews with all of the applicants. We only have funding for up to 15 spots for students, and so then from there we'll make our decisions and we'll tell the students who's going to be joining us.

[00:06:53] Brett Barry: Is there tuition?

[00:06:55] Megan Sperry: It's a free program. The funding that we get supports a free program, and we also offer lunch [free lunch every day for the students], and we really do prioritize students that are in Kingston, in the local high schools, and yeah, it's really fun.

[00:07:13] Brett Barry: On the other side of the room, a narrative crew has built a teenage bedroom set, where part of their film, "Art Block," takes place. Their instructor, David Becker, returns to the Catskills each year to be a part of this experience.

[00:07:27] David Becker: Bedroom shot... we can possibly get that don't involve people.

[00:07:30] Students: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a couple I want to do.

[00:07:32] David Becker: My name is David Becker, and I'm one of the instructors here at the Youth Film Lab, and this is, I think, my fifth year out of the seven years being an instructor, and it's been, you know, really cool to see the collaboration; how everyone's ideas are part of the final script and everyone's doing a crew role that they wanted to do, so we have two cinematographers and a sound person, and we have a couple of actors, and we have a shot list with 80 something shots on it, so we're working our way through that and it's been going really well.

[00:08:05] [movie clip]: Hey there, how's the painting going? Paintbrush. I need a paintbrush. Oh, well, fortunately for you, we have a bunch of them right here. By the way, I saw some of your work on social media. It's really great. I love it.

[00:08:17] David Becker: I worked for many years at the Woodstock Day School, and I'm a documentary filmmaker. I've worked with the Woodstock Film Festival and had films in the festival, and so I don't live in the area anymore, but this is a great way for me to spend some time back in the Catskills area every summer.

[00:08:35] Megan Sperry: Also, you should know that Sir David is living in Las Vegas now, and every year I'm like, please come back, and he comes back. He does a fun little thing where he camps every night at North South Lake.

[00:08:51] David Becker: Yeah, so I've been leaving, driving from Kingston up to North South Lake every night, and I have a tent... camping stove, and I've been setting up and sleeping at North South Lake every night, so it's been great. Last year, it was kind of a test run. I did like a few nights camping and it went well, so it's like this year I'm all in and I'm just kind of up on the mountain every night and seen bears a couple times, saw a beaver yesterday, several turkeys, making movies during the day and hiking and hanging out at the campground at night, so, you know, it's been nice.

[00:09:23] Brett Barry: David's not the only instructor who schleps cross-country to participate in the film lab. Saskia Madlener took a job in Nevada, but she negotiated for this time well in advance.

[00:09:35] Saskia Madlener: It's in my contract at my salary job that I always have three weeks off in July to do this because I love it so much and I really get along with the other instructors. I have a full-time job in a startup in tech, which is new for me because I've been doing film for... for 12 years as a science documentary filmmaker, and I was super excited about having access to this generation like, especially. Like, I feel like my generation has failed the world, and I feel like they feel that way, so I'm a millennial, and... and I like Gen Zers, and I wanted more access to them. Creating something over three weeks with them. It's such a great way to get a window into their world, and I hope vice versa, but I like seeing how they function and think. That's huge for me.

[00:10:19] Brett Barry: And tell me a little bit about the project that your team is working on here at the Film Lab.

[00:10:25] Saskia Madlener: They wanted to explore the houseless situation, specifically in Kingston, because they see it every day. Some of the kids really live near Broadway or go to Kingston High, and they see a version of it every day, so we talked about honing their... their idea and their project, and so they have a great concept that they're exploring, and we've... we've already interviewed a homeless couple, and that's something I've never done before.

[00:10:48] Brett Barry: Having a camera or a microphone and a project gives you a license to interact with people that you normally wouldn't have an opportunity to do that with, so it's not only the filmmaking experience; it's also life experience and interacting with different populations, right?

[00:11:05] Saskia Madlener: Exactly, it's... it's access, and it's a huge privilege. It's... it's a golden key that they... that you don't have otherwise, and I think I made that pretty clear in the beginning because they were... they were concerned about exploiting people in a difficult situation, and so I said, "This is also an opportunity to give voice to the voiceless," you know, and I think they're learning the power of the camera. Yeah, they're learning what that power is.

[00:11:30] [documentary clip]: I was sleeping in a linen truck over at Diego's parking lot one night because I didn't feel like I could get inside safely. Meanwhile, my street bro, Jose, his brother froze to death in a tow truck two feet over... two vehicles went. I lived through it. That poor dude didn't.

[00:11:51] Sebastian Alarcon: Hi, my name is Sebastian Alarcon. I had learned about this project because I don't know; my teachers were kind of worried I wasn't going to do anything with myself, so I told them, "I like movies," and they threw this my way, and for the past week and almost a half we've been working on a short film with my good buddies here talking about, like the... the similarities and differences like just the people of Kingston, you know, so we got the voices of the homeless there, we've got the voices of people from uptown, we got a... a legislator, so, you know, we've got big power and pull with what we're doing, but this... this experience has been the best, and... and, like, in the three weeks, I think, this is like the best learning format there is because they just kind of threw us together. They had two people who knew what they were doing, but we were completely clueless, and we've kind of touched every role, like, very good as a team [solid]. You know, I think the experience has given me, you know, more than I could have asked for. You know, I'm so happy it turned out this way. I was always like... such like, an odd kid with the creativeness, like, me and my friends had been making short movies, and like my career path before this in like 10th grade. I was so dead set on making comic books... doing something creative. I knew I'd end up here, but the difference about this is... it's professional. It's very professional, and when you're working with people who want to do something like this, it's... it's very, like, how do you say, "stereotypical for, like, a writer or someone to be like, I'm going to make ten books, and they never do anything, and like, I'm going to make five movies, but you never put it into production, you never finish your screenplay." With people here, it shows me, you know, if you really put the pedal to the metal, meet people that have the same views as you, and, you know, just be ready to be embarrassed sometimes, you know, like I... I had no experience coming into this, and there were people here that amazed me, like still and people from my team to people like around me, just the professionalism, the experience, and this kind of showed me, you know, this is what I want to do. I love this. I love every second of it. It's been 95 degrees, and we've been out there just talking to random people that don't want to talk to us. I love it. It's the best thing.

[00:13:51] [documentary clip]: I've been in Kingston for 49 years. That everything is getting more expensive. The rent is really very high. Kingston is a beautiful place. It got a couple stuff that you could do up in it. Like you said, "With the businesses that's opening, there's many new places to go to," so it's definitely building. "Revitalizing," they call it.

[00:14:16] Brett Barry: As a professor at SUNY New Paltz who teaches this kind of thing to college students, what's this experience like for you with younger students who have an interest in this field?

[00:14:28] Gregg Bray: Well, I would say the difference between teaching at SUNY New Paltz, the media production classes there, and teaching here... first of all, the students I typically see are seniors working on their capstone projects at SUNY New Paltz ages 20 to 22, and many of them are looking to get out into the world, so it's a real doubling down on the professional skill set, technical skills, storytelling skills, you know, networking, and really trying to make sure that they're ready to jump into the professional pipeline, and here, the stakes are different in the sense that they're younger people. Many of them are exploring their interests. Many of them are, you know, looking to develop some skills, but also make sure that they're ready for either entry level and profession as they get a little bit older or looking to do things that will be meaningful on their college applications, and the other piece of it [since we have three weeks intensive] where it's just us without sort of like the overhead that one would expect at a college, you get to really spend time almost in like a camp kind of setting to really learn about each individual student, you know, their passions, their interests, their careers, what they're hoping to do, and help them develop in that direction, and another thing, these films are premiering at the Woodstock Film Festival, so even though the folks around the table are ages 15 to 18, their work is going to be screened in an industry festival in October, so with the various levels of experience that these young people have, which is certainly different than what our college students have, the expectation is that there is going to be a professional looking and sounding product on the screen that tells a good story, connects with the community, and really furthers a conversation.

[00:16:08] Megan Sperry: I would just like to add also that because this is our seventh year doing the program, we've actually had students that started with us in the beginning that have actually gone through college and are now, you know, out in the field working. Some of the students that have gone through this program have used the pieces that they've made in this program as part of their portfolio, and so now we've had alumni that have gone to NYU or SUNY Purchase, Ithaca College, Bard College to go on to study film, so they've continued after they've done the program.

[00:16:47] Brett Barry: Students like one of this year's teaching assistants, Quinn.

[00:16:50] TA: My name is Quinn. I'm one of the TAs here at the camp. We're just kind of helping the group produce the film, whether that's in the filmmaking, the cinematography, some of the audio work, to kind of help the students out and get a film that we're all proud of.

[00:17:03] Brett Barry: So as TA, that's telling me that you have probably gone through this program as a student, so, you know, how is this experience different?

[00:17:11] TA: Absolutely, yeah, so this is my third year being in the camp in general, second year as a TA. My first year was a great experience, just opening up to the documentary film world. I'm more used to narrative work, but having that experience of telling a real-life story with people who want to share their experience and working with a group who's wanting to tell a story—I mean, it's... it's very similar to narrative work in that way, but it's just more authentic because it's real stories you're telling, and then from there I kind of got addicted, then I got the opportunity to help out as a teacher's assistant, which I couldn't say, "no to," and then just from there I've loved doing it in my third year. I'm going to college in the fall, Savannah College of Art and Design [so a little ways away] for film and visual effects, so kind of postproduction work, but I'll definitely be sure to stay connected to this group and do this again because it's an unforgettable experience. It's really valuable.

[00:18:08] Brett Barry: You can watch all three Youth Film Lab projects at this year's Woodstock Film Festival. See the full schedule at woodstockfilmfestival.org. "Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast" is a biweekly production of Silver Hollow Audio. Support comes from these local sponsors.

[00:18:26] Campbell Brown: Located in Historic Woodstock, Ulster Savings Bank is a proud supporter of this podcast. Visit them at 68 Mill Hill Road, call them at (845) 679-8434, or online at ulstersavings.com. Member FDIC Equal Housing Lender. This episode is supported by Hanford Mills Museum. Explore the power of the past and learn about the ingenuity of the historic milling industry. Watch the waterwheel bring a working sawmill to life. Bring a picnic to enjoy by the millpond. For more information about scheduling a tour or about their 2024 exploration days, visit hanfordmills.org.

[00:19:03] Brett Barry: Thanks also to... The Mountain Eagle and to you, our listeners! If you want to support the show or to get in touch with me, the producer, head over to kaatscast.com, where you can also search and listen to our entire archive of shows. Our production intern is Olivia Sippel. Transcription by Jerome Kazlauskas. I'm Brett Barry. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.