Pardon the New Jack City Reference, I felt like it led in pretty well to the importance of today's blog.
Fall has fallen and we're back in gear to finish 2010 strong. Many of us have been grinding, hustling, whatever you want to call a tireless work ethic all-year-round and students, depending on how they're raised and what school they attend, are no different.
Some work all year round to keep their basic skills up from year to year, some are left to let their skills wain, given nothing to do, and left to their own devices, either to their own boredom and lethargic behavior, or to others' dismay at what a reckless child could do.
Teachers dedicate themselves to the craft of helping students to learn and hone the skills of math, science and literature, with art often being left last in many schools if included at all. To this end, how many of us wonder, "what do we OWE?"
We who blog on entertainment, participate in the entertainment industry in one way or another, who keep up with trends and provide content to propel new ones, do we take a moment to wonder what we owe not only to those who came before us, but to those who come after us?
Regardless of your artistic background, whether it be special effects, make-up, acting, directing, writing, editing, producing (if you THINK producing isn't creative to some degree, try doing it someday), there lies a need and a responsibility to share this information to your followers, your students.
There are many programs out there, many expensive, but the select few, that are free, non-for-profit organizations, that focus on teaching the generation that WILL replace us, what they need to know to better perpetuate the artistic disciplines we've grown to know, love, honor, respect and hold dear.
Although I only highlight a few, such as The Color of Words, The Ghetto Film School or The William H. Cosby Future Filmmakers Workshop, there are dozens of these programs being started all across America and the world over. These programs focus passionately on making sure that visual storytelling is a craft learned and honed by students coming from the same neighborhoods we all come from or go back to.
There was a time when not just anyone could wield film and make it a visual art, much less make an engaging story people could gravitate towards. Today, we have high-definition video in our phones with which to tell similarly, equally moving stories.
In fact, the technology has advanced so far, as well as the knowledge and study of visual storytelling, that there is even a high school exclusively dedicated towards the specific study of it, something unprecedented. Look up The Cinema School and you'll understand. It brings tears to my eyes and a swell in my heart to know witness this. Institutes such as these, need people such as us.
With the skills we've honed over the years, we owe it to these new and continuing institutions to educate the next generation of visual storytellers. With guidance, the next generation could be an incredible force for a whole new renaissance, to follow the one we create and witness today.
Without guidance, we face internet videos of poorly moving cameras, non-existent stories, horrible behavior from embarrassed, in some cases humiliated children, thoughtless even violent, criminal content, with no purpose than to remind us, the new pioneers of this digital, online, 24-hour age, what we have in our rear view mirrors.
Just about every renowned artist in their respective field has, at one point or another, been a teacher, whether they realized it or not. They saw someone doing something that could be done better and chose to teach that "student" how to do it better. It doesn't always need to be in a classroom. To be honest, a lot of the work we do is in the field, learning as we go, teaching as we go. We don't have to have all the answers, only be willing to give the time.
To teach is not for those seeking wealth, though a life can be made of it and well supported, because of it. To teach is to be willing to look at ourselves, and to a degree, improve on what we choose to teach others, because what we give, whether it is knowledge on how to be a better actor, writer, director, make-up artist, is important and must be handled with care.
If we as artists in this new visual storytelling age want to ensure that it isn't completely polluted with viral viruses, we need to remember, "We Owe".
So as I step off the soapbox and look for the sidewalk preacher to give it back to, ask yourselves, when was the last time you taught someone something? How did it make you feel? Will you do it again? What do you "Owe"?
Greg Payton/Natasha M. Hall
C3Stories
Sunday, October 10, 2010 at 2:25AM 