BENTONVILLE -- Justine James sat at a desk Wednesday surrounded by people pointing video and audio equipment at her. She had a line in the short movie she and some other high school students were making.
"Attention please. Visiting hours are now over. Please say your final goodbyes," James said, delivering her line.
Panel Discussion
Joey Travolta will participate in the panel discussion “Lights! Camera! Inclusion!” as part of the Bentonville Film Festival at 11 a.m. Wednesday at The Record in downtown Bentonville. Visit BentonvilleFilmFest… to get more information and to buy tickets.
Source: Staff Report
Barry Pearl, standing behind the camera, barked a mix of directions and encouragement to James as they recorded numerous takes of the line.
"Let's do it again. Keep it rolling. You're looking great," said Pearl, best known for his role as "Doody" in the 1978 movie Grease. "This is Academy Award time. No pressure."
James, a student at Clinton High School, is one of 42 high school juniors and seniors with developmental disabilities participating in the Inclusion Films camp this week at Northwest Arkansas Community College.
Inclusion Films offers workshops at several sites in California to teach people of all ages with developmental disabilities all about film-making. Staff members -- some of whom have developmental disabilities themselves -- also travel the country doing the kind of film camp running this week at the college.
Joey Travolta founded Inclusion Films. The Los Angeles resident has spent all week in Bentonville overseeing the camp. This is the first time the camp has come to Arkansas.
Students on Monday broke into three groups, each one led by an instructor such as Pearl. The groups planned and filmed a five-minute movie.
It's an exercise that develops students' "soft skills," Travolta said. Soft skills, also called "people skills," cover things such as communication, teamwork and time management.
"Film-making is about collaboration and communication. And those are soft skills that are needed in any position that you're ever going to have," Travolta said.
Travolta, older brother of actor John Travolta, has been a singer, an actor, a director and a producer. He starred in the 1978 feature film Sunnyside and has directed and produced more than 20 films. Before all that, however, he had a brief career as a special education teacher.
Travolta produced Normal People Scare Me, a documentary about autism, in 2005 while mentoring a 15-year-old boy with autism who directed the film. The project attracted a lot of attention.
"I started getting calls from around the country, saying, 'Hey, can you come and teach us'" to make films, he said.
The project led Travolta to develop the curriculum for Inclusion Films, which has served more than 1,000 teens and adults with developmental disabilities over the past 11 years.
Lillian Olmsted, 18, a Bentonville High School senior, was applying theatrical makeup to fellow students for a public service announcement they were filming Wednesday.
Olmsted said she's enjoyed the camp, adding it has held her interest more than the typical high school class.
"I'm getting better with teamwork," she said. "It's just really fun. And sure, there are some times when it feels a little bit awkward and sometimes it feels like it's taking a long time. That's going to be with anything. But you know, if you're patient and you work well with people, it works out in the end."
Arkansas Rehabilitation Services and Arkansas Transition Services collaborated to bring the camp to Bentonville. The two organizations have similar missions.
Arkansas Rehabilitation Services, a division of the Arkansas Department of Career Education, prepares people with disabilities to work and live productive and independent lives. Arkansas Transition Services assists in preparing students with disabilities to transition from school to adult life.
The only cost to students for the week-long camp was a $75 registration fee, according to Maryanne Caldwell, transition manager for Arkansas Rehabilitation Services.
"They're getting so much exposure to the art of film-making and what that takes and encompasses," Caldwell said.
Most of the students are from Northwest Arkansas, but some came from as far as Wynne and Pocahontas for the camp.
"Through this process they have become friends and have become really supportive of each other," Caldwell said. "They're brainstorming, they're writing their own scripts, they're developing their own ideas."
Students in the camp have to pitch their film ideas to Travolta before they proceed -- a requirement intended to mirror real life when filmmakers take their ideas to studio officials. Travolta always approves their ideas; the point is to make students understand the process, he said.
Katie Cook, a 2014 Rogers High School graduate who's pursuing an associate of fine arts degree at Northwest Arkansas Community College, attended a Film Inclusion camp in Moraga, Calif., in the summer. She served as the co-screenwriter and script supervisor of her team's short film Bald-B-Gone at that camp.
When Cook returned home, she pushed for bringing the camp to Arkansas.
"It was an eye-opener that there are other opportunities out there for Katie," said Mary Cook, Katie's mother.
NW News on 04/28/2017