There is a kind of nervous anticipation
in the room.
The overhead lights are off; daylight
streams through far-away windows.
The subject is nervous; he feigns a
false bravado, a brave face for the assault to come. He's on the
spot and he knows it.
Tell the truth, or tell them what they
want to hear?
His name is Bob Ensign, teacher at
Newark High School and it is his turn in the “hot seat”; to go
under the lights and face the tough questions. What will they want
to know? About his 12 years teaching at the school? About upcoming
tests? Is it true that one of the buildings on campus is haunted?
Ensign makes an attempt to keep his
interrogators off-balance by reaching over his head and adjusting the
boom microphone being held by senior Lauren Casey. It is supposed to
be pointed at his mouth and stay just out of camera range.
And then the questioning begins.
Chicken Bowl, they want to know about
their teacher's obsession with a cafeteria staple made from chicken
nuggets, gravy, mashed potatoes, American cheese and corn.
The students are relentless as they
drill down to the roots of Ensign's obsession and the finer points of
transforming this hodgepodge of cafeteria side dishes into a comfort
food delight.
As the questioning continues, it is
clear that Ensign has made a serious study of this dish and that he
makes certain that he is first in line each time it appears on the
school's menu.
This interview is part of a larger
series being collected by students in the school's documentary film
class. Taught by community volunteers Mike Yearling and Reece
Thompson, the semester-long course provides students with a
hands-on introduction to the basic skills and technologies of modern
film-making.
The class came about as a result of a
film shown at the 2015 Newark FamFEST.
Mike Yearling brought a film to that
event about on the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans which was the
result of a 3-year service-learning project with students at
OSU-Newark. After the screening, Yearling met with FamFEST
co-director Chris Ramsey who challenged him to bring that learning
opportunity to the students of Newark High School.
Accepting the challenge, Yearling
partnered with Reece Thompson, owner of local production company
Flicker-lit Productions.
From the beginning, Yearling and
Thompson chose the documentary film as a learning model both because
it eliminated the need for actors and because it is easier to tell
real stories that would not otherwise be heard.
For Thompson, “documentaries are a
great way to introduce narrative and cinematic techniques without
having to worry too much about the nuances of advanced filmmaking
aesthetics while getting students interested in relevant social and
cultural messaging.”
It took about six months for the
project to come together and the course was officially offered as an
elective at the end of the Fall semester.
With not much time to promote the
elective, the initial class was filled with a wide variety recruits,
primarily from Ensign's classes. The result was a mix that he
describes as being like “The Breakfast Club”--the 1985 teen
comedy about a prom queen, a nerd, a jock, a freak and a rebel forced
to spend a Saturday in detention. The 2016 class has a similar
diversity of students, many of whom were coming together for the
first time.
And like that three-decade old film,
the message of the class is to build student confidence in their own
perspectives and experiences.
Initially, the teachers had hoped that
the students would each be able to make their own short film, but
limitations of time and equipment forced them to shelve that plan in
favor of a single group project.
For more than a month, the class
learned about documentary films and discussed story ideas.
Gradually, they focused on perceptions and preconceptions about
Newark and its high school.
Reminding the school and the larger
community of many positive things happening at the school took on an
added importance in the light of a bleacher-clearing confrontation
between opposing cheer squads during a recent away game for the
basketball team.
It is a sobering experience to sit in a
classroom and hear students repeat the stereotypes that exist about
their school and their community. Casey is very clear that she will
have to leave Newark in order to pursue her goals.
Yearling says that overlooked by these
stereotypes are a lot of good students who are working hard and are
being supported by a dedicated staff and administration. Having
previously taught a similar class at Walnut Ridge in the Columbus
City Schools system he sees many similarities and a similar gap
between perception and reality.
“You go in thinking one thing,”
said Yearling, “and what you learn is the exact opposite. These
kids have tremendous assets and are an inspiration to me.”
Promoting school and community pride
may seem like an outmoded cliché, but Yearling disagrees. He
believes that so long as the stories told are detailed and the
characters are authentic then the audience will invest their empathy
in the story.
“As we build the story for our film,”
said Yearling, “we apply the Distinctiveness Test. If we can tell
the same story and just substitute a different school name, then we
fail.”
The story that provides the central
theme of the film is that of NHS graduate Jerri Mock who, in 1964,
became the first woman to fly solo around the world.
For Lauren Casey, who herself has the
goal of traveling the world as an archeologist, the choice to include
Mock makes perfect sense.
“She showed us,” said Casey, “that
we can dream big and follow those dreams. Who we are and what we can
do, is not determined by where we come from.” She quickly added,
“Not that I don't love where I come from.”
Not everyone shares such an optimistic
view of the project.
For junior Alisia McDougal, the
self-described class cynic, the class should be doing something
other than making a generic love letter about the school. She would
have preferred the class “do anything else but what's expected.”
According to McDougal, the only way to really understand what Newark
High School is like is to experience it.
For teacher Ensign, the process of
putting the film together has been fascinating. He's watched as the
students have made a series of discoveries about the form and the
process. He thinks the students are more than capable of capturing
the spirit of the school, celebrating its past and looking toward
their collective future.
Like the Chicken Bowl, the different
students have come together to make a project that is greater than
the sum of its parts, but Ensign is still waiting for one final
discovery: “I can't wait for them to figure out that the movie is
really about them.”
Newark's Documentary Film class will
continue collecting interviews and editing their still-untitled film
right up to its premier at FamFEST 2016.
