Documentary History Project for Youth

The 2000 Documentary History Project for Youth student media makers were: Amina Ekpaji (Thomas Middle School), Charles Woodard (Barratt Middle School), John Delancey (Frankford High School), Llanira Esteves (Kensington High School) and Venture Lee (William Penn High School)

Philadelphia-based independent producer Nadine Patterson has been making independent film/video for the past twenty years. She has produced and directed programs for the School District of Philadelphia's cable station, and WYBE Public Television. She earned her MA in Filmmaking at the London Film School. Previous work includes Shizue , a Scribe Video production that was screened at the Museum of Modern Art, NY; and Moving with the Dreaming, winner of a Prized Pieces Award from the National Black Programming Consortium. A recipient of a Media Arts Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, her award-winning work has often been broadcast on public television.

Joan Huckstep works professionally as an independent choreographer, dancer, actor, and designer. She has received grants and fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (1985-89) and was formerly on their Resident Artist Roster. Huckstep has appeared in numerous professional theater productions in Philadelphia and her hometown of Detroit. She has also been an educator with teaching experience in language arts and social studies from early childhood to undergraduate levels. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from Antioch College and a Doctorate of Education in Dance History with a concentration in public history (archival studies and oral history) from Temple University where she was a Future Faculty Fellow. Her research interests concern socio political embodiment in the dance traditions of African and the African Diaspora

Teens participating in the 1998 Documentary History Project for Youth were: Michael Barron (a freshman at Girard Academic Music Program), Kyle Devero (then a Roxborough High School graduate and Temple University attendee), Bonnie Friel (then a Masterman School graduate and Sarah Lawrence attendee), Lizandra Ocasio (then a student at Masterman School) and Michelle Theorgood (then a High School for Creative and Performing Arts sophmore).

Documentary History Project for Youth 2000 student media makers were: Rachel Chapman (Conestoga High School), Loren Hicks (Central High School), Kyree Holmes (Central High School), Cabral Keita (Project Learn), Terrina Price (Masterman School) and Nicole Santiago (High School for the Creative and Performing Arts).

Tina Morton is an award-winning and prolific film and videomaker whose previously completed films and videos, include: The Dance in Aunt Ida Lee [LINK TO SCRIBE CATALOG ENTRY], A Day's Work, We The People, OpnFlo: Investigation, If You Call Them, The Plan and A Promise Fulfilled, which documents a Vietnam veteran who made a promise to his fallen comrade to journey across country in a horse-drawn covered wagon in the tradition of the Buffalo Soldiers. Morton's work has been broadcast on public television, featured in film festivals, exhibited in galleries and museums, and taught in colleges and universities in numerous cities across the United States.

Tina divides her time between Philadelphia, PA and Washington, DC where she is an assistant professor in the Department of Radio, Television and Film at Howard University. In addition to her teaching experience at Howard University, she has taught several film/video production courses at Temple University and has served as a project facilitator for several Scribe Video Center community based projects. She is also the director of the video Severed Souls [LINK], a popular documentary short in the Scribe Video Center catalog.

Maria Teresa Rodriguez is an award-winning film and video maker whose documentaries have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Rodriguez has received numerous fellowships, including a 2001 Pew Fellowship in the Arts. She is on faculty at University of the Arts and she has completed, with Frances McElroy, Mirror Dance, an ITVS funded documentary about two Cuban sisters, both dancers, and the different paths their lives have taken.

The following student videomakers, then ages 13 through 19, researched, wrote, shot and edited this documentary: Stephen Blythe (Freire Charter School), Stacey Luehrs (The Shipley School), Esther Pacheco (Edison High School), Felix Penzarella ( Delaware Valley Friends School), Robert Poles (Camden County Vocational Technical High School), Benjamin Talbert (Edison High School), Zarif Wilder (CHAD Charter School), with assistance from Jordan Astrove (Samuel Fels High School), Andre Jones (Edison High School), Michael Jones (Kensington High School), and Eugene Spencer (Parkway School).

Sarah C. Poindexter received an M.F.A. in film and Media Arts from Temple University in 1999. She was recently awarded a Paul Robeson Fund grant to initiate research for a youth media project that investigates public school reform. She also produced three one-hour documentaries on race/ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion respectively for WYBE's Tolerance Project, an examination of diversity and tolerance in nine different Philadelphia-area high schools. Sarah also collaborated -- with students from Scribe's Documentary History Project for Youth -- on a series of four short form documentaries for Scribe Video Center's Broad Street History Project, which used the city's main thoroughfare as a starting point. Sarah has also worked with the Balch Institute and openly gay teenagers to produce a half-hour documentary about how homophobia affects their lives. While Sarah's main interest is in youth media, she has also had success working as a writer and producer in Hollywood. In 2000, Sarah sold a feature length screenplay to Artisan Entertainment and produced The Source Hip-Hop Music Awards for the United Paramount Network (UPN).

Deborah Rudman is Media Coordinator for Drexel University Television (DUTV), an access channel providing diverse cultural programming. She has collaborated in all phases of the video production process, including curating and producing Through the Lens, a showcase of independent work for WYBE. She also guided Scribe Video Center's Documentary History Project for Youth in 2004 and 2005 in her role as project facilitator and instructor.

Pablo Colapinto works in digital video and on the Web. His Web site, www. wolftype.com, functions as an artist’s notebook, where he collects thoughts and ideas. Using the digital language of his generation, he creates videos that combine an interest in pre-revolutionary war Philadelphia with his own Argentinean heritage to create alluring and poetic vignettes. His work has been exhibited at Fleisher-Ollman Gallery and Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, both in Philadelphia, and screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival and Streaming Media Festival. He has taught at Temple University, and served as an instructor for Community Visions and the Documentary History Project for Youth, both at Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia. He has been in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Smyrna Beach, Florida, and the Experimental Television Center in Owego, New York.

The student video makers who participated in this 2005 Documentary History Project for Youth production are: Ahmadu Ekpaji (Philadelphia Mennonite High School), Tahirah Garrett (Germantown Settlement Charter), Kerry Gilbert (homeschooled), Lee Givhan (Central High School), Hannah Horwitz (Upper Darby High School), Brett Johnson (Roxborough High School), Alyssa Kreilick (Springfield Township High School) and Sophavy Phuong (Bodine High School for International Affairs).

Deborah Rudman is Media Coordinator for Drexel University Television (DUTV), an access channel providing diverse cultural programming. She has collaborated in all phases of the video production process, including curating and producing Through the Lens, a showcase of independent work for WYBE. She guided Scribe Video Center's Documentary History Project for Youth in both 2004 and 2005 in her role as project facilitator and instructor.

Rodney Whittenberg is president of Melodyvision, a music and video production studio and community service and education provider. A composer, producer, songwriter, and educator, Rodney has developed a variety of music and art education programs for youth, adults, and senior citizens. He has taught at Temple University, the University of the Arts, and Drexel University and is an active member on the board of the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP), the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). She guided Scribe Video Center's Documentary History Project for Youth in 2004 and 2005 in his role as project facilitator and instructor.

Several local humanities scholars came on board as project consultants, and they met with the facilitators and the student artists to help them map out and focus what often seemed like an overwhelming amount of project research. The Fairmount Park project humanities scholars included: Penny Balkin Bach (executive director of the Fairmount Park Art Association), Ed Grusheski (the Philadelphia Water Department's general manager of public affairs and director of development for the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center), Peter Rose (an experimental filmmaker commissioned by the Fairmount Park Art Association to produce 1994's Pavilion in the Trees), the late Ernesta Ballard (a former Fairmount Park Commissioner and board member of the Philadelphia Parks Alliance), Fairmount Park historic preservation planner Theresa Stuhlman, and University of Pennsylvania Urban Studies professor Dominic Vitiello. The students also held meetings with biologists at Cobbs Creek Park, and did extensive research at the Library Company and the Urban Archives.

Student filmmakers and the schools they attended during their participation in Scribe's Documentary History Project for Youth are Brooke Asman (Central High School), Jodi Cantor (Central High School), Corey Cohen (Central High School), Krystle Colon (Stoddard-Fleischer/Dobbins HS), Omar Estrada (Camden County Tecnical Schools), Kitty Garrett (Ben Franklin High School), Rayna Guy (Central High School), Taren Hall (Camden County Technical Schools), Julian Harris (University City High School), Christina Ortiz (Stoddard-Fleischer/Mastbaum ATVS), Melissa Rowe (CAPA), Marchelle Smalls (Parkway Center City High School), and Eric K. Willie (Central High School).

Filma nd videomakers Sarah Poindexter, Erica Pennella, Pablo Colapinto, Shakti Jaisang, Christina Choe and Jessica Lakis served as Project Facilitators. Dr. Charles Hardy was the project's chief historian, Dr. Steve Parks served as humanities consultant, and Maria Cortese was the Project Coordinator for the overall Broad Street History Project.