"I think a major act of leadership right now,
Call it a radical act, is to create
The places and processes so people can
Actually learn together, using our experiences."
- Margaret J. Wheatley
BROWNSVILLE TO BUSHWICK
WHY FOCUS ON THESE NEIGHBORHOODS?
The pioneering spirit of local residents is very much visible
and working to impact on community development
in both Brownsville and Bushwick!
Our Backstory Explains Choice of the (2) Neighborhoods!
BROOKLYN YOUNG FILMMAKERS
Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Center Inc (BYFC) is a small experimental-oriented non-profit run by volunteers. With this site we publicly re-brand as the People's Hollywood Project.
Our next step is to explain our vision to Brooklyn community leaders and organizations, especially in the targeted neighborhoods of Brownsville and Bushwick, as well as to film organizations and colleges, while recruiting local filmmakers and artists to volunteer as mentors for Adult beginners.
At the same time we will be outreaching to the community for Adult students to test out our new free online Lessons:
- Form a Team of family members, friends, or co-workers
- Pool resources you already have as basis to develop a script
- Write a short script that can be shot in one day, one location
- Agree to self-produce your film
- Enter the People's Hollywood Challenge to get help from an array of volunteer consultants from all the crafts
HISTORY
In (2001) we got our first grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council to offer an intergenerational Scriptwriting Class. We established a Film Salon Screening Series, started organizing panels with students and professionals from different film crafts, and began to focus more on Adults than teens.
We developed the Make A Film Class Series based upon the understanding that low/no budget short filmmaking can help working Adults improve their people and learning skills, and make them more open to exploring unknown worlds close at home.
Over those years we used an array of donated locations including LIU and NYC College of Technology Continuing Ed, as well as public housing community centers and small businesses in the Fort Greene / Clinton Hill area where most of our Board then lived. We stopped offering services there in (2014).
Most of the small business that hosted our events had closed. Fort Greene had been taken over by affluent new residents (many in new highrises), and big-big budget non-profits. The big non-profits (such as BRIC Media Arts and BAM) do offer working-class Adult artists and youth important education and showcase opportunities.
But the pioneering spirit of working-class artists and organizers is no longer a major visible force in the actual Fort Greene neighborhood.
OUR RE-BIRTH
The last five (!) years Brooklyn Young Filmmakers has quietly dedicated to research, experimentation, and continuing to develop our own curriculum, as we brainstormed ways to turn low/no budget short filmmaking into an exciting vehicle for individual and community engagement and growth.
We also looked for a new neighborhood. We offered small workshops and did our own kind of on-the-street surveys in both Bushwick and Brownsville (special shout-out to the Brownsville Heritage House for its support!). Both neighborhoods are home to many developing filmmakers and artists (those aiming for careers and passionate hobbyists of all ages).
We continued gauging the many changes that have been happening in: society / non-profits / gentrifying neighborhoods in Brooklyn. This while witnessing the explosive growth of the New York Film and TV industry.
Out of all this grew our concept for the People’s Hollywood Project and the creation of a Community Filmmaking District in the Brownsville to Bushwick neighborhoods.
COMMUNITY BRIDGING
A goal of People's Hollywood is to provide neighboring local communities with platforms for its diverse members to show support for each other.
Brownsville residents have more pioneering spirit than they have outlets for. A handful of innovative projects are making a home in Brownsville, such as Made In Brownsville for teens, the Campus Media Hub for kids, the Brownsville Culinary Program for adults, New Smart City, and the planned Brownsville Arts Center.
Parents frustrated by the lack of local places to take kids created Learning Landscapes, turning two supermarkets into learning zones for kids as their parents shop. People are ready to invest in bringing more culture into their everyday lives.
Brownsville though is a neighborhood that lacks the type of housing stock that invites gentrification and in turn investment in cultural resources. It is battling low life expectancy, high infant mortality rate and large number of murders. There is no Netflix or other major company setting up in Brownsville.
Whereas Bushwick has been deemed the next Williamsburg, as its areas with concentrated artist communities are rapidly being flipped from working-class to affluent. Still in Bushwick there are a vast array of independent owner run shops -- vintage clothing, hatmakers, furniture designers, and other craftspeople, as well as numerous art and photography galleries. Some of the people working in these shops are also film stylists and designers. Wouldn't they be wonderful mentors (even for a 1x meeting set up at their convenience)?
What if these artists and craftspeople agreed to offer discounts or low cost rentals (i.e. wardrobe, set, props) to beginning working-class filmmakers from Brownsville?
Would Brownsville residents travel to Bushwick to check out the goods? Would Bushwick's (majority) Latino working-class residents travel to this other part of Bushwick? And if a workshop in a specific craft was being offered at the Brownsville Heritage House would Bushwick filmmakers and artist travel? What if talented musicians from both neighborhoods offered 1x use of their songs for the soundtracks of low/no budget short films of Adult beginners?
