“A Summer In West” — Student-Led Documentary [Trailer & Behind-The-Scenes Story of The Program]

At first, I was frustrated with this summer program. It felt like a fall back plan coming to fruition because what the hell else was I going to do this summer? I agreed to it in April and while the thought of getting back into corporate America was intriguing, especially given the financial ramifications of working two years on a temporary teacher’s salary.

But I knew, worst case scenario, I could go right back and teach full-time at any number of schools come September, nay, August, and that was always more appealing then going job hunting and ending up on the computer for 8+ hours a day, doing something I couldn’t care less about, once again.

As summer approached, abandoning the media program and bailing on Justin, Joe, the Netter Center staff, and the students who had signed up and were expecting to get paid to participate in a multimedia program felt like a non-option. 

So as orientation approached and the program in and of itself was a cluttered mess of ideas thrown into a half-baked excel schedule, the pressure began to mount. In April it was a sort of journalism in which we were hoping to enroll 8-10 students. In early May, we hired a photographer (the very talented Ken Huang) and it became a photojournalism program. A few weeks later, an impressive UPenn student signed on who published the first African-American-based publication in UPenn’s history. In June, that student decided to take on a different opportunity and I was told we had to publish a 10 minute documentary on the Netter Center. 

This was the point I really wanted to bail on everything — late May, early June. 

New direction coming from… I don’t even know who… which would require a totally different approach to the entire summer. It was something I knew we could make enjoyable, but overall the kids wouldn’t necessarily love from start to finish. Now at the end of my first year of full-time teaching I was pretty wiped. I had already fought with kids for 10 months to stay interested in a topic, I wasn’t ready to do it for another 6 weeks without a real break. 

Then we hired UPenn student, videographer, Leo Cohen. Actually he wasn’t even hired yet. We brought him in to meet the group — myself, Ken, Justin, Joe, Suzana — and the pow wow brought new energy to the program. We made rough plans to visit WHYY, Fox 29, Rec Philly, Lancaster Ave, art galleries, and other parts of the city with the kids, and document it in one way or another. Still, there was no real plan, but there was inspiration. On top of that, a video camera was dropped in our lap. One that the fellas originally made a big stink about, but I would find out later would’ve been a much bigger deal 10 years ago. About 3/4 of the way into the hour-ish long meeting, Suzana pulled Leo aside and asked, “So do you want to be a part of this thing?”

He said yes.

Now, in early June, just a few weeks prior to the start of the program, we were looking at 20 enrolled students, four dedicated staff members, plus executive Netter Center support, free equipment, and a new world of possibilities.

A day later, I sent a flurry of texts and emails to the group that went something along the lines of, “blah blah blah… let’s make a fucking movie.”

While we didn’t make a movie, we definitely shot one. The editing process will take time and now it’s our job to find a way to keep things rolling. There’s a million and one grants, film connections, and good people in Philly to help make it happen. 

The Trailer & The Student Scene

In similar fashion to the program, the trailer snuck up on us. We had to do something for the big Netter Center culmination event, and being the media group, we couldn’t come up short-handed. 

The trailer was on our mind for the last three weeks, but we continued to put it off due to schedule constraints, interviews, field trips, and more. So when we finally recognized that we HAD to get cracking on this thing. We were behind. Essentially the whole thing came together in about 3 working days, plus an all-nighter between Leo and I to finish it on time.

I pretty much wrote the entire script Sunday and Monday night of the final week of the program, taking as much from the student storyboards we did earlier as possible. From there, I broke the script up into “scenes,” 24 of them to be exact, and had our best Adobe Premiere editors work on 1-2 of them at a time, while the other students filmed their mini movie — a part two from last year’s program.  This time with a professional editor and cinematographer in Ken Huang.

All in all, both the trailer and the student scene came together and debuted to tremendous applause. It was a proud moment for the group, despite the embarrassing set up process that occurred during the previous groups presentations that had myself, Leo, Justin, and other helpful staff members running around to get the projector, the lights, and the audio in order. Apologies to the presenters before us.

My biggest mistake was easily holding the student scene back. The kids had far and away the most fun working on their own mini movie and it was a mistake to think that we’d need all 20 some students to shoot the movie and bring the trailer to fruition. More staff obviously would’ve helped corral the kids, as it was typically only Leo, Ken, and I, but there were too many occasions when the full group was focused on one interview when we really only needed 4-5 of them. Same goes for many of our lessons and activities, where we split up the groups best we could but would lose students in between the shifts.

You live and you learn. In the future, I’ll surely make an effort to offer the students more creative options.

That being said, as our star quarterback likes to say, it was important to keep the main thing the main thing. The goal is still to walk away with a complete documentary, something that could really make a positive impact on West Philadelphia, the School District of Philadelphia, and the students in this program. Beyond that, as one of our standout students made loud and clear to me, he wants the movie to inspire other kids to make changes in their own lives, value their education, and see opportunity in this world that stretches well past the block.

It’s easy for me to look back on things with regret and frustration, then proceed to punish myself for it. While I have frets about certain aspects of the program, I look back on this summer with pride, and forward with bright eyes. We kind of did this thing by the seat of our pants and going forward, as Ken and Leo go onto other endeavors, I’ll do my best to improve the program for the students and staff.

Sometimes giving people the opportunity to figure it out for themselves and allowing room for failure is what will bring about the best product. By the end of this school year, I think The City Root Media Group/ The City Root Zone will be on another level, especially given continued support from The Netter Center and West Philadelphia High School.