After careful consideration, we have a winner!

By Meredith Slifkin, BMFI Intern

Congratulations to Erica Kleckner of Berwyn, the winner of our short video contest! Erica won a full scholarship to this year’s Summer Filmmaking Workshop at BMFI for her video about how she would spend her summer if she didn't take part in the workshop. See her winning video here:

Thanks to her short, Erica joins the rag-tag group of dreamers (also known as motivated high school students) who will spend six weeks this summer working with film professionals from Youth Media Interactive to learn the ins-and-outs of the filmmaking process. They will gain valuable experience (and have a lot of fun) as they write, direct, edit, and produce their own short film. Click here for more information about the annual Summer Filmmaking Workshop at BMFI.

On set at the 2009 Summer Filmmaking Workshop

Congratulations again to Erica Kleckner and to all of the 2011 SFW students. See you on June 27!

Contest Deadline Approaching!

By Meredith Slifkin, BMFI Intern

Attention High School students and parents: you can still apply to this year’s Summer Filmmaking Workshop! The Summer Filmmaking Workshop is a six-week program in which twelve teens will collaborate to make one incredible short film. They will learn about every aspect of the filmmaking process, taking it from screenplay to screen, and will even develop a marketing plan. The program is taught by experienced filmmakers and will provide a truly unique experience for anyone interested in film, regardless of previous experience.

In fact, it’s not even too late to win a full scholarship to the workshop, valued at $2,000! How can I do this, you might ask? By entering the short video contest! Interested applicants should create a short video (three minutes or less) about how they would spend their summer if NOT at the Summer Filmmaking Workshop. Maybe you would be enslaved by your parents in a job as their personal butler, or maybe you’d be making it big in Hollywood schmoozing with the cinema elite. Either way, let us know and you stand to win the grand prize.

Post the videos on YouTube and email the link to Director of Education Andrew J. Douglas at adouglas@brynmawrfilm.org by Saturday, April 30. The videos will be judged by BMFI staff, and there will even be partial scholarships awarded for “honorable mention” videos. Find more information about the Summer Filmmaking Workshop, directions on how to apply, and a downloadable application form by clicking here.

Better start filming though, because the deadline for the contest is coming up soon on April 30!

Summer Filmmaking Workshop at BMFI

Did you know that Bryn Mawr Film Institute has its own summer program for teenagers?



BMFI's Summer Filmmaking Workshop, now in its second year, is presented in conjunction with The Big Picture Alliance, a non-profit youth development media center that has been teaching filmmaking to Philadelphia-area teenagers since 1994. Twelve students collaborate on a short film over the course of the six-week intensive program, in which they learn about acting, writing, lighting, cinematography, editing, and teamwork under the guidance of professional media-makers. At the end of the program, their hard work will pay off; the SFW partipants will join their family, friends, and community for a special premiere of their film at Bryn Mawr Film Institute on Friday, August 7, at 4:00pm, followed by a reception in the upstairs Multimedia Room.

The Workshop unites a diverse mix of high school juniors and seniors from public and private schools in both Lower Merion and downtown Philadelphia. Instructor Chris Fusco, a Senior Teacher at Big Picture Alliance, praises the collaboration between the students "fantastic." He adds, "BPA has serviced both city youth and suburban youth since our inception, but we have not had many opportunities for these two populations to collaborate in a meaningful way. By spending seven hours a day together, four days a week, the students [in the Summer Filmmaking Workshop] are learning and growing together as digital media artists. They're different visions are being realized in a work that has different perspectives on the teenage experience. It is a really unique environment."

In the first few weeks of the program, participants practiced various acting and production techniques and collaborated on a script. Then they put their production knowledge into practice while filming their comedic short film on locations around the Main Line. Now entering their fifth week, the students are finishing filming and will soon begin post-production, when they will edit their film and design marketing materials to prepare for their big screen premiere.

The short comedy features Dobbins High School's Isa Walker as a sixteen-year-old boy named Lucas who works as a clown at birthday parties for little kids. At the beginning of the film he finds out that the birthday party he has been hired to work is for a classmate... the girl of his dreams. Keep an eye out for a link to the finished film when it's complete or come to the FREE premiere event on Friday, August 7 at 4:00pm.

BMFI looks forward to seeing what these creative young filmmakers do next.