December 5, 2007 - Each summer, the Tribeca Film Institute invites New York City public high school students to take part in its Summer Arts Institute Filmmaking Workshop. Produced in partnership with the NYC Department of Education, the program is an intensive, tuition-free, 6-week filmmaking course that gives NYC public school students filmmaking training, access to state-of-the art equipment, and a platform to express their ideas in new and innovative ways.

This year, the five films were tied together by the theme of environmental awareness. The films discuss energy consumption, global warming, water pollution, brownfields, and other environmental messages.

“We wanted the films to have a voice, to reflect the world we live in,” explained Lisa Lucas, manager of youth programming for the Tribeca Film Institute. Choosing an environmental message provided the students with a broad enough subject that each project could be unique. “So much that happens in the city and the world is relevant to the environment,” said Lucas.

Click here to view the 2007 Summer films.

As part of their green theme, the students also put together a checklist so that their filmmaking would have as little impact on the environment as possible. The hope is the checklist will serve as a building block of behavior as these young filmmakers continue on their careers.

Some of the suggestions the students came up with include:

-Print as little as possible in pre-production.

-Ensure that there are recycling bins wherever waste is created (for paper, glass and plastic).

-Ensure that each member of the production is in possession of a “jump drive” to allow for easy, paperless transfer of documents amongst the crew.

-Respect the environments you are filming in, leave them nicer than you found them.

-Turn off equipment when you aren't using them—cameras, chargers, and lights. In the summertime, leaving lights off will help keep indoor spaces cool as well.

-Use whatever paper you do need to print out as scrap paper.

-Ensure that the production is outfitted with a laptop for paperless note-taking.

-Use dry-erase boards or scrap paper recycled from for any pre-production note-taking instead of wasting paper.

Interested applicants for the Summer 2008 Filmmaking Workshop should visit www.tribecafilminstitute.org/youth to learn more about the program.