Reel Action - News 2008

International Press Clippings - 2008: Youth Producing Media

Screen Nation for Teens. The American Film Institute (AFI) is proud to announce AFI ScreenNation™, the first online video posting-and-sharing community for middle and high-school students, aged 13-18. Read More.

CineYouth Winners 2008. Congratulations to all of the filmmakers who participated in the 2008 CineYouth Festival! Check out video from the festival at: .

Italy: New youth website unveiled. A new website launched on Monday will encourage young people to express themselves on issues from politics to sex and sport. The site called Giovani was unveiled at the Rome headquarters of the Giuseppe Marra Communications media group by the Italian Youth Minister, Giorgia Meloni and GMC President Giuseppe Marra. Read More.

Young filmmakers from UNICEF workshops receive honors. UNICEF oneminutesjr. films received 14 nominations for the annual One Minutes Jr. Awards. The films, all made during Oneminutesjr. workshops sponsored by UNICEF, are the work of nine filmmakers under 20 years old from around the world. The winners will be announced at the Stranger Awards show on 5 July 2008 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The awards show is part of the Stranger Festival, a European Cultural Foundation event promoting inter-cultural dialogue among young media makers. Read More

UN children's environment conference to create change around the world .(UNEP) A young Australian film maker, an Indian child combating water waste, a 13-year-old organizing clean-ups in Cameroon, and a teenage American recycler are among 700 children from around the world attending a UN environment conference in Stavanger, Norway. One of the largest international children's conferences in the world, the biannual Tunza International Children's Conference, organized by the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP), took place on 17-21 June, on the theme 'Creating Change'. Read More

Londoner wins Filmaka competition. Londoner Nuru Rimington-Mkali (21) has won the first annual Filmaka feature film competition with his short And I Refuse to Forget. He will receive $5 million funding for his feature directorial debut, which Filmaka will produce.
Filmaka was set up by producer Deepak Nayar (Bend it Like Beckham, Buena Vista Social Club) and erstwhile Fox Entertainment Group head Sandy Grushow to provide opportunities for undiscovered filmmakers and writers from across the world. Judges for the competition included Colin Firth, Werner Herzog, Neil LaBute, John Madden and Wim Wenders.
Nayar said, “The quality of films Filmaka received was excellent! In a community of more than 3,600 filmmakers and film lovers, Nuru stood out among them and rose to the top.” Read More.

Teens Watching Mostly Short-Form Videos. When 512 teens were asked what content they watched most on "any device," 76% said user-generated clips, with comedy skits or stand-up routines coming in second and music videos third.
Less than one-half (44%) said they watched sitcoms, and only 36% said they watched dramas. If the kids are to be believed, they watch more news and political clips (42%) than celebrities and gossip (25%). Read More.

Learn Movie Making from a Master. (Apple). Every few weeks through October, a new podcast episode from Oscar-nominated director Baz Luhrmann and his production team will inhttp://www.apple.com/education/settoscreen/troduce you to another aspect of moviemaking, starting with on-set still photography, then moving on to costume design, cinematography, scoring, and more. You’ll get insights from the artists at work on Australia, watch them in action, view footage the rest of the world hasn’t seen yet, and follow along as the movie comes together. Read More.

Online Art Exhibit. Voices of Youth is proud to present its 18@18 Online art exhibit. Take a look at the art pieces submitted by VOY members from around the world, and see what they have to say about their rights. You can navigate from piece to piece, and also e-mail it to friends and family! Read More.

Teens design posters to challenge looked-after stereotypes. (Children & Young People Now) A series of posters designed to challenge the negative stereotyping of young people in care has been produced by a group of looked-after teenagers in North Tyneside.
The team of seven hope the posters, which were developed with support from the government’s Mediabox fund, will encourage people to stop pigeonholing children who have been looked after. Read More.

UNICEF’s ‘Story Jam’ looks to expand outlets for youth communication. A talented group of computer programmers, designers, content developers and hardware experts recently gathered at UNICEF headquarters for ‘Story Jam New York’, a three-day event focused on developing new outlets for youth communication. Read More.

All media is new media. The Internet has become a major catalyst for civic engagement. It offers young people an opportunity not only to meet their peers from around the world but also to converge on issues of common concern. Young people with access to digital media are using this technology to promote global awareness, while those who are still catching up with the technology are finding new, creative ways to get their voices and messages across. Read More.

Youth clubs team up with MTV to generate young filmmakers. A 1.8m pound initiative to get more than 250,000 young people involved in the media has been launched by Clubs for Young People.
    The youth club network has teamed up with volunteering charity v, which is providing the cash, along with MTV and marketing company TomTom Nation to launch Boom!
    The project will allow 16- to 25-year-olds to learn and put into practice film production and media skills with the hope of opening up volunteering and vocational opportunities.
    Young people will be challenged to make short films ref-lecting their opinions, concerns, interests and passions. Films could range from video diaries to news bulletins and mini-documentaries. Each participating club will have an online newsroom called a Boom! Room in which videos can be uploaded. Read More.

UNESCO invites youth from Palau, FSM, RMI to media training workshop . The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has put out a notice to the youth of Palau, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), Nauru, and Kiribati to attend the UNESCO Young Media Producers Training Workshop to be held in FSM in June of this year.
The objective of the training, according to the notice, is to provide young media producers with two weeks of intensive advanced documentary and script writing skills. UNESCO has previously conducted two similar workshops for the youth in Fiji (2006) and in Melanesia (2007). UNESCO intends on repeating the same success in the Micronesian region this year. Read More.

Fresh lenses trained on ME conflict. Seven young Israelis and seven young Palestinians have gathered in a
monastery in the hills above Jerusalem to begin a six-month photographic dialogue. Side-by-Side, a joint project between UK-based charity PhotoVoice and the Palestinian-Israeli charity Parents' Circle/Families Forum, aims to give children their own voice. Read More.

The Arctic Winter Games 2008 Youth Photographer Project. The Arctic Winter Games 2008 Youth Photographer Project was developed to support the vision and presentation of the Arctic Winter Games as seen through the camera lenses of four young photographers from the Northwest Territories. These photographers are working with professional photographers throughout the Games week. The best of their work is as part of an online exhibition that will grow each day. The first images from the official Youth Photographers of the 20th Arctic Winter Games are now online.

Survey Participation. UNICEF has a new Youth Section and one of the main priorities is to develop a strategy to support youth communications outreach. There is a short survey for young people and youth groups and we would appreciate if you took the time (it's really short) and fill it in so we can adjust our future projects accordingly. Take Survey.

WGBY wins grant for Latino program. WGBY, Springfield, Mass. has been awarded a $106,800 grant for a project that will teach Latino youth essential television, radio and online journalism skills. The Latino Youth Media Project, funded by the grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, will engage Latino communities within the WGBY region by teaching 10 Latino high school students the skills needed in today's media environment, according to Russell J. Peotter, general manager of WGBY. Read More.

Student Voices. University of Pennsylvania, Student Voices is designed "to improve the dialogue of democracy among our nation's young people and encourage their civic engagement." Through this website, educators and young people can take advantage of resources designed especially for both groups. Learn More.

Winners of the 5th Annual International Photoshare Photo Contest Announced. Photoshare's Annual Photo Contest is a popular international event mobilizing photographers to share their work for charitable and educational use, in return for a chance to win a prize. By submitting their images, participants contribute to a growing collection of development-oriented photography, helping non-profits communicate health and development issues worldwide. Read More.

Life through a lens: how Britain's children eat, sleep and breathe TV. A generation of "multitasking" children are living their daily lives - including eating and falling asleep - to the accompaniment of television, according to a survey of youngsters' media habits.The flickering of the screen accompanies most of them before they go to school, when they return home, as they consume their evening meal and then - for 63%, far more than read a book each day - in bed at night. The study of five- to 16-year-olds shows that four out of five children now have a TV set in their bedroom. Read More.

New guide on 'citizen media' available. The Rising Voices Web site has released the first in a series of guides on interactive media. /An Introduction to Citizen Media/ offers case studies on how people are using tools such as blogs, podcasts, online video and digital photography to engage in global conversations. Download the guide in English (PDF)

Youth and Media Publication Available. News on Children, Youth and Media in the World No. 2, 2007, from the International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media is now available on their web site. This issue includes articles on computer games and Internet safety, news briefs regarding children and television from Colombia, Morocco, India, the UK and more.

Teens Offer Perspectives on Things That Matter Most in Their Own Lives. L.A. Youth will celebrate an important milestone in January 2008 -- turning twenty years old. The not-for-profit organization was founded in 1988 by former teacher and community organizer, Donna Myrow, after a U.S. Supreme Court decision (Hazelwood) empowered campus administrators to control the content of school newspapers. Many high school journalism programs and newspapers were devastated by the decision. L.A. Youth filled the void with a program that fosters critical thinking, writing skills, literacy, civic education. From its modest beginnings with only a handful of teens and limited funding, L.A. Youth has since become the largest independent newspaper by and about teens in the USA. Read More.

Young filmmakers express themselves as 'OneminutesJr' project expands its reach. After five years of running workshops
in Eastern and Central Europe, UNICEF expanded the reach of the 'OneminutesJr' youth filmmaking project to other regions during 2007.
     Operated in partnership with the One Minutes Foundation and the European Cultural Foundation, the project organizes five-day film workshops in which each participant learns camera skills, story development and production techniques.
    Over the past year, more than 275 young people from more than 15 countries produced their own one-minute films through OneminutesJr workshops conducted by UNICEF. Four of the workshops used the 18th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as their theme. Participants were asked to pick one article from the CRC and visualize it in an artistic way.
    The resulting films -- which focused on such topics as child neglect, the right to education, disability rights, child labour and the right to
play -- were all posted on the 'CRC@18' website. In addition, a selection of the short films was provided to broadcasters around the world.

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