Engages, Educates, and Empowers Student Filmmakers
Film industry professionals mentor students to step out of their comfort zone and tell their stories. We unleash untapped creativity and encourage the next generation of working filmmakers to transform the culture of the industry.
Weekend Bootcamp & Screening Event
#FilmBoot24
What is FilmBoot 24? It is our program designed to address the achievement gap, unleash creativity and share student films with the world -- all jam packed in a weekend. Cinema Ed partners with high school educators and counselors, universities and professional filmmakers to immerse students in the world of filmmaking. The bootcamp takes place on a college campus and students get 24-hours to plan and produce a short film with the help of professional and college student mentors. The program culminates in a film festival on Sunday with a public screening of student films and awards determined by professional judges. Click here to learn more!
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Film Festival Platform
Through its Young Filmmakers track, Cinema Ed collaborates with film festival directors and corporate sponsors to provide broader visibility for the work of student filmmakers and offer educational experiences with film professionals. Cinema Ed promotes local engagement in film festivals by providing an end-to-end solution that covers an array of opportunities for festival directors to enhance existing programs with fresh creative short films produced by student filmmakers. Cinema Ed manages the juried competition and awards presentation and also provides a structure to educate attendees about the creative and fillmmaking processes. Want to learn more? Click here
In-Class Programs
Cinema Ed’s initial pilot was a multi-disciplinary program involving 93 students that was conducted in a public school located in Montclair, NJ. We co-created the program with the school's Principal and Language Arts and Technology teachers. The curriculum-enhancing initiative brought a professional screenwriter into the classroom to help students understand the connection between a literary work, screenplay and film. Students then created their own screenplays, presented their work and voted on the one to move into production. Classroom time was devoted to the iterative process of creating a story with authentic character development, plot arc and resolution. Students then self-selected their roles in the pre-production, shooting and editing process, and a professional film director and public radio producer supported the student film production and audio portraits that documented the experience.
Instructional Guides
Cinema Ed produces classroom tools to enable educators to easily meet language arts curriculum requirements while fostering young storytellers. "Bartleby" is one such example. A short film produced by New Waves Productions' Gerard Amsellem in 2013 in collaboration with Cinema Ed founder Richard Stephen Bell, this updated retelling of Herman Melville's classic short story has been used in classrooms across the United States by Language Arts teachers as a teaching tool for lessons in American Literature.
GIFT Program
Gateway to the Industry of Film and Television is a multi-faceted, hands-on film education program that will provide youth in Orange and surrounding areas a place to meet, take classes, work with professional mentors, create films, and make connections that lead to further educational and job opportunities in the film and television industry. An expansion of the FilmBoot24 program, and in partnership with ValleyArts, this filmmaking hub will be located in the ValleyArts space, which is part of the Kelli Copeland Artists Co-op, a mixed-use former industrial building with affordable artist live/work units. Here the youth of Orange, Newark and neighboring towns will be able to learn the trade skills of filmmaking and storytelling. Stay tuned for more info!