October 1, 2007

ARTICLES: Where Mentors Guide Young Filmmakers (USA)

Where Mentors Guide Young Filmmakers
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

JAMES DUARTE, 16, says his plan to become a film director and
screenwriter can be traced to when he was 9 years old and persuaded his
father to buy him a camcorder.

These days, Mr. Duarte is conceiving, shooting and editing short films
in a two-year after-school and weekend program run by the Downtown
Community Television Center, a 35-year-old nonprofit production and
training organization in Manhattan. The center's professional filmmakers
produce television documentaries (15 of which have won Emmy Awards), and
its trainees include high school students, some of whom are bent on
pursuing film-related careers.

"I definitely want to be in the film industry," said Megan Rosado, a
17-year-old trainee. "It's kind of a dream of mine to have my own film
company."

Ms. Rosado, a Bronx resident, and Mr. Duarte, also of the Bronx, spoke
about their plans recently while editing film they had shot for separate
projects.

Each year, 8 to 12 high school freshmen and sophomores are admitted to
the program, which began in the mid-1990s and is called Media
Fellowship. They receive stipends of $7 an hour for nine hours a week,
though the program's administrators say that most devote more time to
the program.

FULL ARTICLE AT

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/jobs/30homefront.html?_r=1&ref=media&oref=slogin

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