By Cathy Spaulding
When filmmaker Brandon Kramer asks Sadler Arts Academy students how to tell the story of Muskogee artist Maurice Bebb, he’s met with a volley of ideas.
“Please raise your hand,” he finally has to say. “I’m hearing eight voices at once.”
The ideas keep coming as the eighth-graders piece together scenes for a movie about the artist, known for his intricate bird etchings.
The students are focusing on Bebb’s life through the On Location: Spotlight on Your Community Program sponsored by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Sadler is one of nine schools across the United States participating in the program, which helps students make a documentary about a local artist or arts program.
Two media teaching artists from the Kennedy Center are spending three weeks showing Sadler students how to set up interviews, edit scenes, anything associated with making a video.
“The students each had to apply for the job they wanted to do,” said Sadler eighth-grade teacher Georgie Chapuis, who helped apply for the grant.
Student Russell Statler said his job as an audio technician involves “lots of learning and headaches.”
“I have to hold the sound boom during the scenes and make sure it’s out of the camera’s sight.”
Student set designer Maryah Reavis said she has to work with the location coordinator and designer “to make sure everything is placed right for the shot.” She said she’s learning more than movie making.
Reavis said the class works on the project from 9 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. each day, then does any needed work each afternoon. School work, however, comes first.
“Mrs. Chapuis teaches us pre-algebra before we start,” Reavis said.
Chapuis said the film class “is probably one of the most valuable learning experiences they’ve had.”
“It puts them in a real-world experience, with a boom man, a clapper, an audio check, set designer,” she said. “Each knew what they needed to do.”
For example, one interview scene in the library involved rearranging some books and plugging holes with pieces of Bebb’s art.
“These children come from a world where video is part of their lives,” Chapuis said. “They are finding that you can actually be part of society as a set designer or location scout.”
Chapuis said the students also are learning responsibility, higher order thinking and teamwork.
Camera operator Kyrie Thompson said she thought she knew how to do video because she does it with her family.
“But this is completely different,” she said. “With my family, I can mess around and get in people’s faces. Here, it’s more complicated. You have to know when to do a certain zoom at a certain time. And it also teaches us to get along with each other.”
The students spend several hours each day working on the project. Their tight schedule was interrupted when school was out for two days because of sub-freezing temperatures last week. As a result, they had to cram two days of interviewing into one, Chapuis said.
Darrell Ayers, Kennedy Center’s vice president for education, said the center was impressed with Sadler’s grant application.
“We were also fascinated that this was one of the few projects that didn’t have a living artist,” he said.
Bebb, who died in 1986, established Bebb’s Flowers, had his work displayed at the State Capitol, as well as the Chicago Annual Exhibition of 1951.
The students do some of their editing in a school bus that was converted into a moving studio. The final video is to be shown Jan. 22. After that, the school will get a media lab, consisting of a computer, digital editing software, cameras and other accessories.
Sadler Principal Maudye Winget called the project a “once in a lifetime experience for the kids.”
“We had a compelling story to tell,” she said. “My dad knew Bebb personally and every Christmas went to the Bebb home and brought a print for my mother.”
After Jan. 22, students will resume their regular class schedules, Kyrie said.
Winget said reading is “almost part and parcel to what they’re doing” on the film project.
“Their science and social studies will be caught up,” Winget said. “Georgie has been known to have school on Saturdays, ordering a pizza for the students.”
Reach Cathy Spaulding at 918-684-2928 or Click Here to Send Email
