Summer Film Project seeking volunteers

[Reiss, David]

The logline for our treatment is: "In the Curtis Bay and Brooklyn neighborhoods of South Baltimore, activists, community leaders and urban visionaries fight to liberate their communities from more than a century of environmental degradation that has led to oppressive crime, poverty, food insecurity and poor health."

We will look at the community's relationship with the coal piers and efforts to mitigate the coal dust that permeates the lives and lungs of the residents living in the vicinity. We will look at what we call "boots on the ground" through the work of City of Refuge and The Well to meet the needs of the most vulnerable residents - those caught up in domestic violence, housing and food insecurity, prostitution, crime, drug dealing and addiction. We will explore the activism in Ben Franklin High School, which is where Free Your Voice was founded and successfully fought the citing of the largest medical incinerator in the country. Finally, we will look at the efforts to create a circular city in Baltimore that is focused on zero waste plans, composting and recycling as well as urban farming, land trusts for housing and community agency of their neighborhoods. It's a big bite.

We are looking for Student to work with us on the film.

We would be interested in those who can :

organize footage and edit on Premiere Pro

transcribe interviews

take script notes

be second and, possibly, third camera

help with research

and even pitch in on identifying grant opportunities

Other possibilities might include helping us inquire into the rights of some of the footage about the communities out there on YouTube.

We are a small and largely a friction-free team so are looking for students with good dispositions and an eagerness to do the work with diligence. Interest in environmental and social justice are huge bonuses with us. The work is serious but we have fun doing it. My partner, Kyanna Cadwallader, is 25 and did her senior thesis on the communities.

Ideally, we would like to talk with interested prospects in the next two weeks. The project is open-ended in terms of dates, but the student could expect to work through the summer. Needless to say, we have been severely hampered by COVID so trying to find our way forward when things that normally would happen in public are moved online. It's complicated everything, but we are navigating as best we can.

Expectations for availability, principally for shoots, would be fleshed out when we meet with the student or students and they come aboard, and we will develop structure for their work based on our needs and their time constraints.

Sincerely,

John Scheinman

(202) 213-3977

Now4b...@aol.com