Hey folks,

Please help publicize the special Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Community
Forum, 'OPENING DOORS - BREAKING WALLS', dealing with opening up
careers in film production to people of color. It's June 2nd. I've
attached the press release and also cut and pasted it below. Please
come. Please publicize with your networks.

Trayce Gardner
Brooklyn Young Filmmakers
718-852-9342

* *

BROOKLYN YOUNG FILMMAKERS CENTER
Presents a Special Community Forum
(For adults, teens, families, educators, employment counselors,
filmmakers)

‘OPENING DOORS â€" BREAKING WALLS’
What keeps people of color from advancing in
Careers in the Film Industry

What to do about it

Guest Speaker: Councilwoman Letitia James
Learn about the New York City Council’s ‘Below the Line’
Initiative
(and what ‘Below the Line’ means in filmspeak!)

THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2005 6:30pm â€" 8:30pm FREE
Spike Lee Screening Rm (LLC 122) Long Island University, Brooklyn*
(LIU at the corner of Flatbush & Dekalb) TRAINS: 2, 3, 4, 5 to
Nevins N, R,D, W to Dekalb)
*This event is co-sponsored by the LIU Media Arts Department
For More Information: Brooklyn Young Filmmakers 718-852-9342
info@...


Brooklyn Young Filmmakers and special guests present a lesson and
dialogue
about working in New York City’s film industry.

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is also launching a campaign to raise public
support for the founding of its Filmmakers Cohort Training Program.
The BYFC Cohort Program will train and place working-class Brooklyn
residents in entry level positions in various careers in film
production. The program will operate with links to many
neighborhood organizations (including Brooklyn Community Access
Television, Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University, New York
City Housing Authority, Continuing Education Dept. of New York City
College of Technology, and Benjamin Banneker High School).

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is opening a public office in June in the
Walt Whitman Community Center in Fort Greene public housing, where
the Cohort Program will be based.

Topics to be covered in this special community forum include:

- The film industry’s unique ‘product’
Film Literacy - How to tell a story visually / How to
read a script (audience participation exercise)
- What the ‘Below-the-Line’ jobs are in Film Production
- Film industry terminology
(and how the ‘Production’ stage differs from
‘Pre’
and ‘Post’
Production stages)
- A report on established Los Angeles programs that prepare
people of color for careers in the California film industry
- An introduction to New York City education and training
resources for both adults and teens
- Indicators of job growth in the New York Film Industry
- Presentation of the Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Cohort Training
Program model

The forum will conclude with a panel of film industry
professionals, union representatives, indie filmmakers, and college
and high school film students (panelists are still being finalized).
Trayce Gardner, founder/director of Brooklyn Young Filmmakers, is the
evening’s facilitator.



-2-



THE NEED FOR A COMMUNITY FORUM


Brooklyn residents are excited about the recent opening of the
Steiner Studios, a Hollywood-size movie studio booking star-studded
productions, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Fort Greene. The recent
establishment of New York state and city tax credits for film
productions is also helping to spurred increased local film
production. With grand scale promotional events like the Tribeca
Film Festival, a new kind of ‘Hollywood’ is sprouting up in
Brooklyn’s own backyard. But traditionally there has been a wall so
high around the film industry, that the ordinary person cannot see
into it. How then can the ordinary person get through the door?

People of color are greatly underrepresented in the film industry.
The film industry is decentralized. There are no listings for film
production on the job boards at employment centers. The
entertainment industry is one of the most unionized industries in
the country. In the public education system, the idea of unions is
usually never touched upon, and if it is it’s often in a negative
light. Can this be changed? How can ordinary people (and their
children) develop middle-class careers in the film industry?

Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is working to demystify careers in the film
industry through the establishment of a job training and networking
center. Its mission will be to assist not only young adults making
their first career choices, but also to help adults with already
developed expertise (such as carpentry, sewing, painting, and
secretarial) acquire the unique mix of skills necessary to crossover
to careers in the film industry.

This community forum is the beginning of a creative public dialogue
about how to open up the seemingly larger than life world of film
production to everyday people.