Creators open doors for their works on online platforms that have been used for conversations and work meetings during the pandemic. From April until the third week of May, the young Latinos and Latinas students who are being trained at the Youth Cinema Project showed their scripts through Zoom, with actors and actresses, also Latinxs, reading and acting them.
The students presented scripts that they have created over the past year. The pandemic stopped the interaction in the classroom, but, as in many homes, the sessions and homework became virtual, so these students were able to move forward with their productions.
The Youth Cinema Project (YCP) is a year-long program that operates in underserved classrooms in schools districts of California. Teachers and mentors are film industry professionals. Students learn how to write scripts, present them, put together their own production team, shoot their films as directors and actors, and post-produce.
The project is part of the curriculum – it’s a subject – in grades four through twelve. Students take these classes twice a week, 90 minutes each, throughout the school year.
“YCP is not a classroom exercise in which students pretend to be filmmakers. Every Youth Cinema Project student is a filmmaker,” the project’s website says. YCP is part of the Latino Film Institute that Edward James Olmos, Marlene Dermer, Kirk Whisler and George Hernandez founded in 1997.
During their apprenticeship, students in the program visit the studios of the partner production companies. When they are developing their scripts, they also have access to professional guidance from those studios. At the end of the school year, according to the project, students in Southern California have screenings of their productions at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and CAA (Creative Artist Agency); in Northern California they do so at Pixar.
#YCPLiveReads brought together several events for reading and performing student scripts. Latino actors and actresses who work in well-known productions as Gentefied, Vida, Narcos Mexico, Napoleon Dynamite, East Los High, Little America, Selena The Series, On My Block, The Casagrandes, Broke, Elena of Avalor, Mayans and Queen of the South participated.
“I can’t imagine how the kids feel getting their projects shut down. I have visited YCP classrooms and know some of these kids and I’m so glad we can breathe a little life into their stories. This shows them you can’t let anything hold you back, when there is a will there’s a way,” Chelsea Rendon, an actress on Vida said, as quoted by Be Latina.
Ashley, a fourth grader at Pájaro Valley School, wrote the script entitled Supper Puppy. In the story, puppy dog Joey develops super powers after being struck by lightning in a park. The project was presented in collaboration with LatinX in Animation. Paula Garcés, Julio Macías and Jason Genao performed it.
Gabriel wrote Long Lost Father. He goes to Margaret Pauline Brown Elementary School. His script is about a boy who grew up without his father but decides to seek him out and meet him. Lauren, a sixth grader at Heninger Elementary, is the author of Scary Class President, which is about a boy who loses the election as class president and tries to sabotage the winner.
The two won a screenwriting competition on the #YCPLiveReads.
Rafael Agustin, executive director of YCP, told Be Latina that response from the Latino community in Hollywood for these readings was overwhelming.
“To have this amazing group of talent read material crafted by students in our program will definitely create a huge impact in their learning, while at the same time showing the importance of having diverse voices in storytelling.”