Media Arts: Video and Film Production
A 9-month paid course for youth (ages 14-18) that combines professional mentorship, hands-on training, and a creative community to develop artistic skills, produce original films, and explore media career pathways.
Participants build digital media fundamentals in the fall by producing short films from script to screen. In the spring, they collaborate on a group film, which debuts at the annual NECS Film Festival. Students gain real-world experience by conceptualizing, shooting, and editing projects—mastering camera work, lighting, sound design, and Adobe Premiere editing.
The program culminates in a community screening to showcase their work, with opportunities to compete for cash prizes this spring.
- Appropriate for: 8th to 12th Grade & College Age
- Dates: Tuesdays and Thursdays - 36 sessions (January 7 - May 22)
Instructor
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Betty BastidasFilmmaking InstructorBetty Bastidas is an Ecuadorian American filmmaker, photographer and media educator. Originally from Ecuador, came to the US at the age of nine. She uses filmmaking and photography as social tools to celebrate the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity.
Most recently, she completed her first international soccer feature, Dreamtown, following the precarious dream of a young Afro-Ecuadorian soccer player, Anibal Chala, as he strives to make it to the professional leagues, and over the span of six years sees his dreams become reality. Other credits include a commissioned short film for ITVS Latino Graduates called Can’t Hold Me Back, following Fernando, a Latino youth from Detroit as he becomes the first in his family to earn a high school diploma. This story aired on PBS Independent Lens in 2013 and was selected to be part of the PBS Online Film Festival. She also co-directed New American Girls for Latino Public Broadcasting, featuring three Dreamers, young undocumented Americans. She is the co-founder of a multicultural production company called Sunrise Media Cooperative focusing on stories of injustice and inspiration for underrepresented communities in the US and abroad. She has been teaching film for the past 8 years at Crotona International High School, Parsons Scholars Program, Temple University and as a teaching artist for organizations such Young Audiences and Tribeca Films Institute. Her work has garnered numerous awards, including NALAC Fund for the Arts, NALIP/HBO Film Grant, Post-production grant from the CNCINE Ecuador, New York Women in Film & Television In-kind grant, NYFA Photography Fellowship, and Brooklyn Council of the Arts Community Grant. She is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and is based in NY.
