By ROBERT GOLDRich
tor partnership model has been successful in varied industry applications, ranging from the Los Angeles City/County Film Office under the aegis of the Economic Industry Development Corp. to several notable educational endeavors, including the Animate IllinoisA program reported on in this column last month.
The latest to come to SHOOTs attention is the Motivating Excellence and Development Through Industry Arts (M.E.D.I.A.) Internship Program, a cooperative venture between public schools and the private multimedia industry in San Francisco. After a years hiatus, the program is slated to re-emerge this summer; its an eight-week curriculum in which public high school students attend academic classes at the same time they gain first-hand experience through production classes and employment at San Francisco firms. Among the participating entities best known in the spot community are production house (Colossal) Pictures, animation studio Wild Brain, visual effects/post shop Western Images, and the Bay Area Video Coalition.
For summer 99, the M.E.D.I.A. Internship Program will provide placement for at least 15 high school interns as well as six college pupils-the latter group interning in supervisory and academic teaching assistant capacities. Professionals at the industry shops will donate their time to mentor individuals and/or teach production classes. For example, at Wild Brain and (Colossal), interns as a group will create an animated film from inception to completion-incorporating such disciplines as script writing, storyboard drawing, pencil-test animation, sound effects creation and final editing. In addition to academic and production instruction, high school interns will be placed as employees at participating companies for eight hours a week. If they successfully complete both the academic and vocational portions of the program, they receive a scholarship/stipend of $350, full credit for the equivalent of a high school class, and most importantly, gain exposure into a possible career field.
That exposure will be nurtured by mentorship. Each intern will have a personal mentor who is an industry professional. Mentor and student will meet two hours a week to discuss career goals and work on specific projects. Currently a pair of Bay Area high schools are in the program which targets at-risk youth who are creative and talented, but not necessarily performing up to their academic potential. The goal is to get them to connect the need for education with job opportunities in exciting, creative fields.
Sally Payson Hays-who is scheduled to complete her Ph.D. in educational psychology from U.C. Berkeley in May-oversees the M.E.D.I.A. program as its director. Her responsibilities include helping to recruit and select interns, helping to design the academic courses and vocational training programs, fundraising, financial accounting, program evaluation, and reporting to the board of directors and donator foundations. Hays also will serve as the instructor of the academic class-Reading & Writing For Animation-designed for those students placed at animation studios.
Hays is well connected to the industry. Her husband is director John Hays, president/co-founder of Wild Brain. Coincidentally, his spots for World AIDS Day out of TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco, are featured in this weeks The Best Work You May Never See (see separate story, p. 11). Sally Hays was teaching at Mission High several years ago when she conceived the M.E.D.I.A. program. She naturally brought Wild Brain into the educational fold and in the process discovered an able educator/mentor, Ed Bell, a spot/multimedia director at the studio. Having grown up in South Central L.A., Bell has experienced what inner city kids confront in day-to-day life. Hes taken a proactive role in M.E.D.I.A. at Wild Brain.
If this summers program fares well, M.E.D.I.A. hopes to expand to new sites and increase the number of students. Such expansion could entail a year-round after school curriculum or possibly integrating internships into regular school schedules.
“Memoir of a Snail” Takes Top Prize At London Film Festival
The Official Competition jury said: โOur jury was incredibly moved by Adam Elliotโs Memoir of a Snail, which is a singular achievement in filmmaking. Emotionally resonant and constantly surprising, Memoir tackles pertinent issues such as bullying, loneliness and grief head-on, creating a crucial and universal dialogue in a way that only animation can. The jury is delighted to recognize an animated film alongside its live-action peers.โ
Rounding out the winners of this yearโs films screening In Competition are:
- Winner of the Sutherland Award in the First Feature Competition โ On Falling (Dir. Lauraย Carreira)
- Winner of the Grierson Award in the Documentary Competition โ Mother Vera (Dirs. Cรฉcile Embleton, Alysย Tomlinson)
- Winner of the Short Film Award in the Short Film Competition โ Vibrations from Gaza (Dir. Rehabย Nazzal)