JBFC FILM & VISUAL LITERACY PROGRAMS
College Students

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In the summer of 2007, the Jacob Burns Film Center launched its most far reaching educational program to date, World Crew. Geared towards college-aged students, World Crew offers students the opportunity to explore the world through the craft of documentary filmmaking.

The program is designed to teach hands-on filmmaking, but equally important is the opportunity World Crew offers for cross cultural understanding. We want our students to come away with greater empathy for other people, religions and cultures. In the process, we hope that they learn more about themselves and how they can help make the world a more peaceful place.

World Crew teachers are film professionals with decades of experience in documentary, screenwriting and storytelling. World Crew is directed by Academy Award nominated filmmaker Susan Todd, who also heads JBFC’s International Programs.

   

In its first year, World Crew students traveled to Uganda to explore the meaning of peace. Their assignment was to document the work of several grassroots initiatives funded by 100 Projects for Peace, focusing on people affected by AIDS, unsanitary water conditions and civil war. It was tough challenging work, but they came back with some powerful scenes and memorable characters which have been edited into a one hour film called Shooting for Peace. It will have its theatrical premiere at the JBFC on Sunday May 18, 2008 at noon.


Trailer for Shooting for Peace

Is World Crew right for you?
The World Crew experience consists of five weeks of collaborative filmmaking workshops. This rigorous program is for students committed to working with one another and participating in discussions, who are eager to accept constructive criticism from instructors and each other. Like any learning process, students get out of World Crew, what they put into it.

We’re not formulaic in our approach to filmmaking. We believe that a film’s structure should evolve from how best to tell its story. Our visual vocabulary draws on both narrative and documentary, and is influenced by elements of cinema verite, ethnographic filmmaking, and strong characterization. Most of all, we hope to encourage our students to use all their senses as they film and interpret a new culture.

World Crew 2007 Blog “Not a day goes by that I don't dream about our amazing summer.” -Stephanie Harris "I think it would have taken me years to learn as much as I did about my own strengths and weaknesses had I not been on this pressure cooker of a trip." -Gordon Bell "It has been a mind-expanding experience, collectively yet also deeply personal, during which I have learned how others live, struggle, laugh and cry and have been fortunate enough to be able to document it." -Noah Hutton “First-hand experience beats theory every time” Journal News, July 27, 2007

World Crew 2008 will take place from July 7 through August 1, five days a week, in Pleasantville, New York.

Click Here for info about other JBFC educational programs