Action Youth Media

Our projected results for the 2023-2024 program year (July 2023 through June 2024):
Outputs
• 145 class dates over 48 weeks
• At least ten short films: Produced, published, screened, and sent to festivals.

Outcomes (These goals are based on prior internal surveys and evaluations over the past five years of the program).
• 260 students will learn filmmaking skills, increase confidence and teamwork skills, and report feeling socially and emotionally heard and safe in our space.
• 260 students will create short films together.
• 75% of students responding to our survey report an increase by at least one point (out of 5) in their filmmaking skills (such as the use of specific software)
• 75% of those responding to our survey report an increase by at least one point (out of 5) in confidence, teamwork, or social-emotional well-being in our space.

Our strategy to achieve our mission is to provide the following after-school activities:

Filmmaking Classes
Active and experienced film professionals teach film classes on weekdays and Saturdays. Classes are in one of two formats: a quick film challenge to create a short documentary film in two hours each week or an eight-week progressive class with lesson plans each week resulting in one longer, more evolved short documentary film. Students learn the basics of digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras, lighting, and sound equipment, an introduction to camerawork, scriptwriting, storytelling in film, film production, photography direction, basic Adobe Premiere, and making post-production decisions. Film topics this coming spring include climate change, the importance of green spaces, well-being at school, what it’s like as a BIPOC/AAPI student going to a predominantly white institution, local artist profiles, digital equity, and other topics that might be difficult to address in school.

Summer Filmmaking Classes and Student Filmmaking Jobs
We provide free summer classes for eight weeks, on weekdays and Saturdays. This year, many different guest teachers will be connecting with our students so that they can build a thorough awareness of post-secondary school career opportunities and a network of future mentors and employers. The Summer DOCS program is an intermediate to advanced skill-level program for eight high school students to create a more in-depth short documentary film over six weeks, meeting three days per week. Summer DOCS apprentices are paid $15 per hour.


Outreach Events
Action Youth Media presents film, photography, drawing, and painting activities to attract and engage students and parents in our studio on school holidays. We produce the annual Fall Fest in November and the Montgomery County Youth Film Festival in April to promote media arts careers and highlight local youth filmmakers from schools across the area.

What’s unique about our classes:
Film students in the fall 2022 semester had this to say about their Youth Media teachers:
“He was kind and it felt like he was a peer helping us and not someone just teaching us.”
“I like how she is confident and easy to talk to. I feel comfortable around her”

All of our classes are free to everyone. Other relevant arts and filmmaking programs in our Silver Spring area charge fees for their classes, workshops, and summer camps. We are an arts organization that makes a public commitment and successfully provides teens with an inclusive, safe, creative space. As an entity smaller than a middle or high school and especially a school system, we have the power to respond to our community’s needs more quickly and personally. Parent Susan Matubia has this to say:

“For someone who was never interested in art before, my middle schooler has thoroughly enjoyed each class and activity that he has participated in. I observed the youth’s ability to express themselves through videos that they created and drawings that they made under the guidance of GB Youth Media staff that captured their view of the world we live in. As a parent, I can confidently state that my son’s artistic instinct has been picked and I have seen a positive change in my young son and his willingness to express himself through art in various ways.” - Susan Matubia, February 24, 2023

It has been a journey to get to this point. We have had ups and downs over the last 15 years since incorporation. A group of students, including Hawa Toure and others, made the first Action [GB] Youth Media films together in a church fellowship hall in 2005 with the help of local volunteers such as Richard Jaeggi. The organization was incorporated as a nonprofit in 2008 under Mr. Jaeggi’s direction. Hawa Toure, Juanita Bailey, and early teachers such as Ellen Daniels and Heather Bradley continued to expand the after-school and weekend activities through 2014, when Mr. Jaeggi died suddenly of a brain tumor. Across the County and DC area, neighbors, students, alums, activists, teachers, parents, legislators, and filmmakers rallied together to save Action [GB] Youth Media, called Gandhi Brigade at the time.

Students’ documentary films such as Juvenile Justice and We Are Now have won numerous awards nationwide. Films have featured community members, local artists, students, pioneers, and veterans such as Brigadier General Charles McGee and Congressman John Lewis. Evan Glass was the second executive director, and Anna MacLachlan joined in 2018 as the third director when the organization was building its first permanent studio space.