Brownsville, Texas—Belize native Michael Gallaty rarely visits Brownsville, but when his uncle told him of a film camp being held here, he was first in line to sign up.
“I came to visit my uncle, but I just really wanted to come to the camp,” the 15-year-old said.
The first ever film camp is being held on the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College’s ITEC campus and provides 10 children, ages 10 to 15, the skills to film, edit and write scripts.
The two-week camp is sponsored by the Brownsville Society for Performing Arts and UTB-TSC.
Top: Iris Rivera, 13, edits "One Chance, One Planet," a conservation film on global warming she is making during a filmmaking class at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College’s ITEC campus. The 10-member class, calling themselves Fort Brown Productions, is sponsored by UTB-TSC and the Brownsville Society for the Performing Arts. Right: Bobby Robles wants to be a producer and director like his heroes Clink Eastwood, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg. He his getting his start in the filmmaking class at the UTB-TSC ITEC campus.
“The program is to build awareness of the filmmaking industry. It’s something we’ve seen growing little by little already in South Texas,” said Cledia Hernandez, interim program coordinator for business and industry at the university.
The camp started on July 16 and ends Friday with the premier of a 5-minute video created entirely by the students.
Their video, “One Chance, One Planet,” will emphasize local concerns over global warming.
“We wanted to capitalize on the bad weather last week,” said camp instructor Luis Martinez, referring to the video’s topic.
Martinez was surprised at how fast they adapted to the new Apple software, Final Cut Pro.
“They’re like sponges at this age in terms of learning,” he said.
Martinez, normally a media-technology teacher at Los Fresnos High School, described this camp as “trying to compact into two weeks what you learn in your entire career.”
The camp served as a pilot program with most equipment being donated by the father of a participant. The cost for the program was $400 per child.
“(Local cardiologist) Dr. (Robert) Robles wanted to send his son Bobby to a film camp in New York, but when he looked around he saw the potential to have one here,” Martinez said. “It’s all sky-rocketed from there.”
Scheduling for a month-long filmmaking camp for teenagers in the fall is already in the works.
The Brownsville Herald
pictures by Daniel Lopez
video by Diana Maldonado
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