Expanding on Ways to Bring Film to the Classroom

TFI’s Education programs are known for teaching middle and high school students around New York City about films and filmmaking, but this year, TFI has taken major steps in teaching teachers as well.

After serving as the primary cultural partner in the creation of the Moving Image Blueprint back in 2009, TFI has worked with the Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment and the Department of Education to host a series of day-long Professional Development Workshops, which have been held at venues citywide, including Museum of the Moving Image and the Museum of Modern Art.

This year, thanks to the generous support of JP Morgan Chase, TFI was able to take its professional development initiative a step further by offering free, in-school “mini-residencies” (three-class sessions) to every teacher that attends a workshop. The diversity of needs in NYC classrooms reflects the diversity of the City itself, and these residencies provide a much-needed chance for a TFI teaching artist to work closely with a classroom teacher to develop and model media arts instruction that meets their unique needs -- with some exciting results.

TFI teaching artist Elliot Montague worked with first and second grade teacher Alexis Neider at The Neighborhood School, proving that quality media arts instruction can help even the youngest of learners create some amazing work. Elliot explained, “The students and teacher had a clear vision and they needed a filmmaker to help them achieve this -- specifically with production." Alexis explained how Elliot helped fill in some of these missing production pieces to her existing project:

"Elliot introduced us to different kinds of shots and making a shot list. He helped set up the shots with the directors, actors, and camera-people, and practiced the whole thing. He also came back for the filming of the movie and taught us to do each shot twice so that we could decide later which to use. He worked with the whole class on developing sophisticated vocabulary to speak about their films and related our films to historic films. He also helped set up our Q+A and talked about real film festivals. He is brilliant and incredible with children."

Together, Elliot and Alexis led her classroom through the making of a short film that then premiered at Anthology Film Archives on March 22nd.

If you are an NYC DOE teacher and would like to participate in our Professional Development Initiative and host a mini-residency in your classroom, please email youth@tribecafilminstitute.org for more information.