Tag Archives: film

Student Earth Day Film Places In Redford Competition

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Students were asked to think “outside the box” and design a product using the theme Circular Economy, then create a short film. Over 100 films were submitted from 26 states, with three from Hamlin selected to be one of the 12 finalists.

Co-founded in 2005 by Robert Redford and his son and board chair, James Redford, The Redford Center harnesses the power of film, video and new media to engage people through inspiring stories that galvanize environmental action.

A team of Grade 6 students won 3rd place and $200 for their film entitled, Eco-Friendly House Project. The film (created by Sophia T., Elena, Cate, and Vivienne) focuses on ways to make a house more eco-friendly by using recycled materials for windows, solar panels, and other features that reduce greenhouse gas production and unnecessary waste.

To learn more about the Redford Center Competition, please visit: https://stories.redfordcenter.org/about/

To watch the winning films (including ours), please visit: https://vimeo.com/409977747

Hamlin and Town Team Up To Explore Bias

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On May 15, Wanda M. Holland Greene (Head of The Hamlin School) and Lorri Hamilton Durbin (Head of Town School), partnered with filmmaker Robin Hauser for a special screening and discussion of the film bias.

bias challenges us to confront our hidden biases and understand what we risk when we follow our gut. Through exposing her own biases, award-winning documentary filmmaker Robin Hauser (CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap, Running for Jim) highlights the nature of implicit bias, the grip it holds on our social and professional lives, and what it will take to induce change.

The toxic effects of bias make headlines every day: sexual harassment, racial profiling, the pay gap. As humans, we are biased. Yet few of us are willing to admit it. We confidently make snap judgments, but we are shockingly unaware of the impact our assumptions have on those around us. The documentary feature bias follows filmmaker Robin Hauser on a journey to uncover her hidden biases and explore how unconscious bias defines relationships, workplaces, our justice system, and technology. bias contemplates the most pressing question: can we de-bias our brains?

After the screening Ms. Hauser and Linda Tong (a VP with AppDynamics) answered questions from the audience about the film and artificial intelligence.

Some of the topics covered in the film and discussion were:

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Hamlin Shows the Documentary: Waking Dream

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Tuesday evening, Hamlin’s PLAID parent group showed the film Waking Dream. Theo Rigby, who last shared his creative visual work at Hamlin in November of 2016, created the film.

PLAID’s mission is to support a vibrant and inclusive environment in which all members of the community can celebrate their authentic selves. We foster open dialogue through family programs, parent education, and community outreach.

Waking Dream weaves together the stories of six undocumented young people as they sit in limbo between deportation and a path to citizenship. DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) has provided nearly 800,000 undocumented young people a chance to work legally, go to college, start businesses, and pursue the “American Dream.” After DACA is rescinded, Waking Dream follows the unfolding fate of six of these young people as they fight for legal status in the U.S., struggle with the deportation of family members, and pursue their dreams in a country that is trying harder and harder to push them out. They know their fate must go one direction and they are fighting for their future in America.

After the film, Wanda M. Holland Greene (Head of The Hamlin School), led a discussion with a panel speakers. The three panelists were: Theo Rigby (Director of Waking Dream), Iliana G. Perez (Director of Research and Entrepreneurship with Immigrants Rising), and Dilan Pedraza (a Social Studies Teacher who is in the film).

Highlights of the discussion included:

-It is important to stay curious and continue to ask probing questions about immigration and DACA, rather than just believe homogenized media-generated opinions.

-It is important to stay proximate to both the nuanced issues related to immigration and to the individual people and their specific stories.

-It is important to remember that we are all interconnected as human beings.

Audience members were very moved by the film.

One Hamlin father stated, “You did an outstanding job with the film. You really humanized the situation.”

To watch the trailer and learn more, please visit: http://inationmedia.com/waking-dream/

Dancer Eric Garcia Visits Hamlin

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On Friday, Eric Garcia spent the morning working with girls in our Grade 8 dance elective.

Eric Garcia is a choreographer, performer, filmmaker, teacher, and activist whose feet are deeply rooted in the Bay Area. He proudly serves as Production Coordinator with Fresh Meat Productions, Sean Dorsey Dance, and the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. Mr. Garcia has collaboratively worked with groups of incarcerated men, senior adults, LGBTQ youth, and self-identified non-dancers on various performance projects. Mr. Garcia hosts a monthly drag cabaret as Churro Nomi at the Make Out Room and more sporadically at The Rite Spot. He was the Spring 2017 choreographer-in-residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and a 2016-17 Emerging Arts Professionals SF/BA Fellow. He is the recipient of the 2017 CHIME Award with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company.

 

Samantha Weaver ’88 Speaks about Filmmaking

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On Tuesday, Hamlin alumna Samantha Weaver ’88 spoke with grade 5 students about filmmaking.

Our students are in the process of developing films focused on ocean-related topics ranging from gray whales to the importance of plankton. A long-term goal is for students to submit these films to the International Ocean Film Festival and the Noe Valley Girls Film Festival (started by Hamlin girls).

Samantha Weaver has been deeply involved with the film world since her mid-twenties; acting, producing, casting, writing, among other film-related endeavors.

Hamlin School students asked Ms. Weaver questions related to both the process and the challenges involved with making films.

Below are some of the key points that she made:

-Inspiration is definitely needed when making a film. You have to listen to what is important to you and why.

-On a longer film you will spend hundreds and hundreds of hours making it, so staying inspired is crucial.

-How much time do you have to tell your story? Are you making a short film? What do you need? An iPhone? Software? Do you have to hire people to help you?

-You have to love what you do, it can take 3-4 years for a film to go from script to the theater. There is the writing, the shooting, then post-production with editing and sound.

-In the earlier stages of brainstorming don’t hold back any ideas, just let your creative thinking flow.

-I was inspired to make documentary films because they provided me with an opportunity to learn about a person’s life or an event that happened. I love to continually learn.

-My favorite documentary that I helped produce was, “Straight Outta Hunter’s Point.” A whole section of San Francisco is build on toxic waste that the Navy dumped there. The cancer rate in Hunter’s Point is extremely high because of where it is situated.

-I’m in the early brainstorming stages for my next project. I hope to co-create something with my husband. I will be sure to let you know about it!

Hamlin Participates In The Film: “If I Were The President”

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On April 5, filmmaker Anna Sergeeva and her team interviewed 18 Hamlin grade 7 students. Each student was asked to share what she would do or change as the President of the United States.

We hear endless opinions about politics from adults, but the voices of our youth are often missing.

If I Were The President is a nation-wide art project that asks youth under 18 years old what they would change if they were the President of the United States. 

In December 2018, all these messages will be delivered to the White House in hopes of making a strong, poetic statement about a future worth fighting for together.

The Hamlin School was Ms. Sergeeva’s first stop in a journey that will take her all around the United States interviewing young people from: Colorado, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and New York. The completed short film will be shown in San Francisco this June.

To learn more about the film project, please visit: http://annasergeeva.com/if-i-were-the-president/

View the trailer for the film here:

 

Student created web content

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The Hamlin.org Global Citizenship webpages needed to be created, and Dan was preparing for a seminar he was leading about Global Citizenship.  We wanted to have visual content to supplement the written/spoken material that had already been assembled. What better than a student created iMovie project to meet these needs!?

Dan Polk, Director of Global Citizenship, and Marisa Felt Bellingrath, Assistant Head of School, teamed up to envision the project and created a proposal for two Grade 8 students, Ava and Bella, to complete.

Jim Lengel, Middle School Tech Integration Specialist, and Liz Beck, Project Manager LMS, were teaching Bella and Ava in the Digital Art Elective at the time of the project.

Q: What grade level were you working with?
 
A:  
Dan Polk and Liz Beck: Grade 8
 
Q: What were your goals going into the project?
 
A: 
DP: The central goal of the project was provide a broad overview of Hamlin’s Global Citizenship program, one that incorporated the voices of both students and faculty.
LB: Both students who created the video had been in Digital Arts for 5 trimesters. They are iMovie and Photoshop power users and are very talented esthetically. We needed a project that would challenge these students and help them take their skills to the next level – creating digital content that can be used in a real world context, and learning how to work as a part of a team to execute a creative project.
 
Q: How did you roll out the project?
 
A: 
LB: Originally, Dan asked me to work on this project. While I was happy to help, the timing perfectly coincided with the start of Trimester 2 of Digital Art and the struggle I was experiencing with keeping the course relevant to Ava and Bella.

Dan arranged a time to meet with Ava and Bella during Digital Art. He introduced the scope of the project, as well as its goals and timeline. He and Marisa also dropped in periodically to check on their progress. The students knew I was there as a resource, but overall they managed the project independently and worked on it both during Digital Art and on their free time.
 
DP: I also provided the students with music ideas, images, and questions to pose to faculty/students.
 
Q: If you were to do the project again what (if anything) would you change?
 
A: 
DP: I might include a live shot or two of students doing something Global Citizenship related, skyping, working in the community etc.

Ava and Bella’s work is featured on the Hamlin website!         http://www.hamlin.org/Page/Program/Global-Citizenship

On/line Teen Dance Festival … Teacher Reflection

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Last week Hamlin dance teacher Jill Randall her first annual on/line teen dance film festival.  The video highlighting the successful entries has already had more than two hundred views.


First Annual On/Line Teen Dance Film Festival – 2015 on Vimeo.

Participating Schools:
International School of Bangkok
Idaho Arts Charter School (Nampa, Idaho)
The Public Academy for the Performing Arts (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Sandy Spring Friends School
La Reina High School  (Thousand Oaks, California)
Carolina Friends School (Durham, North Carolina)

We believe that EFFECTIVE teaching is REFLECTIVE teaching – here is her reflection on the project’s success(es):

Goals going into the project:
The On/Line Teen Dance Film Festival is a natural extension of the “dance for the camera” work that we have been doing at Hamlin over the past four years with 7th and 8th grade students. We wanted to think outside of these school walls and see what other middle school and high school dancers are doing around the United States, as well as other countries. How and why is dance important in teens’ lives and in education?

How we were successful in meeting those goals:
We had a great first attempt with the project! With the wonderful support of Hamlin teachers and staff (including Wanda Holland Greene, Marisa Bellingrath, Rose Helm, Jim Lengel, Rachel Davis, and Mark Picketts), we got the application out through several education, tech, and dance networks around the world. Twenty schools sent in letters of interest, and about 15 schools completed the process and submitted films. The Hamlin students were excited to see the responses. The students created a thorough rubric to assess the films. Lots of great conversations, connections, and inspiration came out of this.

When we do it again, we will……
We are already excited about next year. We will select a theme that all submissions must relate to, to deepen the connections and conversations. We also will be articulating more for the Hamlin students – and for all applicants – more tips and tools related to film editing. What questions are the dancers trying to answer? What does a film offer that a dance onstage does not?

Stumbling blocks:
Keeping track of all of the applications and submitted films! We will create a different system for next year.