Teen Advisors Shaping T Tauri Galaxy
Website Combines Film School, Screening Rooms, Film Reviews, and Online Film Community
Five teen net “advisors” are playing a major role in the creation of the T Tauri Galaxy, an online filmmaking community for teens being readied for a June launch by the T Tauri Film Festival and Movie Camp. The Galaxy will be available at the T Tauri website, www.ttauri.org. The Galaxy will include short tutorials on filmmaking topics created by T Tauri Movie Camp faculty, links to useful websites, and screening rooms with festival winners and official entries. But the majority of the content for the site is being created by five teenagers who have already demonstrated both interest and proficiency in filmmaking and related fields, including Angela Wagster of Batesville.
The T Tauri Galaxy is being developed specifically to provide young filmmakers year-round access to filmmaking tools, resources, instruction, support, and peer input. Festival President Bob Pest describes the Galaxy as “a way of taking geography out of the equation” so that rural students, in particular, have the same access to technology and learning opportunities as their urban and suburban peers. The role of the advisors is to create and maintain a supportive, teen-friendly environment where peers can exchange ideas, share work in progress, and grow both personally and creatively.
T Tauri executive director Judy Pest, who is supervising the “advisors,” refers to them as “the guiding stars of the Galaxy.” The teens were chosen after a competitive application process. They submit all of their work, including their time sheets, via the internet and maintain regular contact with Pest and each other via email. Each advisor is focusing to some extent on an area of special interest and expertise, as well as having the opportunity to explore new areas. They will work year-round, refreshing and updating Galaxy content regularly. Each advisor will have his/her own blog.
The Teen Net Advisors are:
Angie Wagster, a student at Batesville High School and a veteran of the T Tauri Movie Camp. She lived in Japan for four years, where she became interested in Japanese animation, which led her to develop skills as a voice actor. She is also active as both a model and a photographer. In addition to her efforts creating the Galaxy, Wagster is working as this year’s T Tauri Festival Assistant.
Will Abreu from Stamford, Connecticut. He attends the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering. He is a three-year veteran of the T Tauri Movie Camp filmmaking workshops. Abreu is focusing his work on technology and animation. He is creating a short video chronicling his work on a Flash animation school project and is working on an article comparing DVD and Blu-Ray optical disk formats.
Sarah and Emma Bailin, students at Little Rock Central High School. The Bailin sisters are multiple T Tauri Award winners for their documentary films Watching the Waters Rise and Separate but Equal: The Ruling that Changed the Future. They recently completed their third and most ambitious documentary, Return to Sender, recounting the housing of several thousand Cuban refugees at Fort Chaffee in 1980 and the long-lasting repercussions. The Bailin sisters are reviewing other festival and youth media sites and online filmmaking tools and resources, as well as creating original instructional materials drawn from their own experiences.
Tanner Smith, a student at Manila High School and a two-year veteran of the T Tauri Movie Camp. Smith’s screenplay, The Adventurers, was the only entry by a high school student in the first annual 2008 Ozark Foothills FilmFest’s Screenwriting Competition. Smith is the Galaxy’s resident movie critic; he will review both new releases and classic films available on DVD.
The 2008 T Tauri Film Festival and Movie Camp takes place July 14 through 26 in Batesville. Workshops are offered in animation, acting on camera, camcorder fundamentals, community documentary filmmaking, and narrative filmmaking. Information about any of the T Tauri activities or programs is available at www.ttauri.org or 870-251-1189.
The T Tauri Galaxy is made possible by a Regional Technology Strategies grant funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. The T Tauri Film Festival and Movie Camp is the youth division of Ozark Foothills FilmFest, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) educational non-profit founded in 2001 and headquartered in Locust Grove, AR.
