Filmmaker gives preteens, teens a chance to make their own movies
Summer has only just begun, but some local students chose to start their vacation by taking more classes.
The Octavia Fellin Public Library partnered with a filmmaker named Travis Holt Hamilton to give preteens and teens ages 12-18 a chance to learn about the filmmaking process and make their own films in a four-day workshop that took place June 12-15.
The program was made possible by a Resilience in Communities After Stress and Trauma grant. The grant is given to communities in an effort to assist high-risk youth and families and promote resilience and equity in communities.
Hamilton has been putting these workshops together for communities across Arizona and New Mexico for several years now, but this was his first one in Gallup. He said one of his favorite parts about doing the workshops is that they’re not necessarily catered to just people who want to be filmmakers.
“The focus now is ‘Let’s give everyone who attends these workshops an understanding and a toolset so they know how a film or video is made,’” Hamilton said.
He explained that this more general approach allows anyone, from teachers to people working in the medical field, the tools and skillset to make their own videos.
In Gallup’s four-day workshop, the preteens and teens learned basic film-making skills before being split into two teams. The teams then wrote their own scripts before diving into the pre-production of their films. Filming started on the third day, and the fourth was spent editing before they premiered their films at a film festival event hosted by OFPL.
The two films the preteens and teens worked on were entitled Enchanting Businesses and El Morro Knows.
Enchanting Businesses is a documentary that featured three local businesses — Red Shell Jewelry, Sammy C’s Rock N’ Sports Pub & Grille, and Quintana Music. The students asked the business owners questions about their business, such as how they got started and how COVID-19 affected their business.
Twelve-year-old Sophia Jeffress was a part of the Enchanting Businesses group. She said she signed up for the workshop because she’s always been interested in theater and movies, and she wanted to learn more about the filmmaking process.
El Morro Knows is a horror/comedy about a group of friends who go to the local movie theater and experience some creepy things, including an employee who keeps telling them “El Morro knows.” As the friends exit the theater, they notice a flier on the ground with a photo of the theater employee. The flier announces that the employee passed away.
Joshua Joe, one of the co-writers and actors involved in El Morro Knows, said the group combined some of their ideas together to come up with the concept for the film.
Another co writer/actor for the horror/comedy was Annabel Deslippe. She said she’s always wanted to act in a movie, and so she took up a chance to do so when the workshop was announced. She said her favorite part was all the planning that went into creating the film.
On the final day of the workshop, members of the community were invited the premiere of the movies. OFPL even rolled out a red carpet for the special event.
HAMILTON’S HISTORY AS A FILMMAKER
Growing up in southern Idaho in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, Hamilton admits he himself didn’t know much about filmmaking as a kid.
“Growing up as a child in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I loved movies, but I never realized it was something you could go into until college when my roommate had a Filmmaking 101 book,” he said. “I thought that was kind of interesting and weird at the same time…”
He made his first movie in 2007. It was called Turquoise Rose, and focused on a Navajo College student who must choose between a vacation in Rome or moving to the reservation to care for her ailing grandmother.
Although Hamilton himself is not Native American, he said he found himself really connecting with Native Americans after he moved onto a Hopi reservation in 1996 as a part of a mission trip with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
He lived on the reservation for two years, and he soon realized his perception of Native American culture was completely wrong.
“I realized a lot of my perceptions growing up in Idaho in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s were taught by Hollywood,” Hamilton said. “The few Native movies I had seen kind of showed me an idea of what Native country was like. Then when I lived on the rez I actually realized that there were a lot of stereotypes in the films that were out at the time and films of the past. I realized that the people who lived on the reservation who were chopping wood with me and who I was working with were not too different from myself.”
Hamilton has made six films featuring Native American stories, and he said he is trying to capture the human experience in each one.
“My films are focused on the human story, trying to capture the human heart. I’ll find an idea or find a story based on a true story that just captures that human spirit. A lot of those stories have been wrapped up in Native culture with Native locations and characters.”
Hamilton said he hopes to do another filmmaking workshop in Gallup in the near future. The next one may even be open to adults.
In the meantime, OFPL has bought some of the film equipment Hamilton recommended, including some editing software. The software and equipment are now located in the library’s MakerSpace, and now anyone who visits the library can use the equipment to make their own film.
By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
