This summer Asian Media Access has successfully supported 2 cohorts of BIPOC youth and young adults learning the Multimedia/IT Skills – the 1st one is the 30 STEP UP youth cohort learning animation, studio production and graphic design, and the 2nd one is the 12 young adults cohort focusing on front-end web development.
We introduced the interns to various online resources and tools to design and produce their media products, along with a certification site through edX. These tools provide various levels of learning, along with diverse difficulties and flexibilities that the youth and young adults can quickly produce products using templates, but have enough features that they can also fine-tune and create more complex works with their own ideas.
Guest speakers and trainers were invited on topics, like: Bicultural Healthy Living, All of Us national initiative, Problem Gambling and Vaping Prevention, COVID-19 and Vaccination, along with Mentorship and Career Exploration, etc. There were additional trainings provided by marketing guru – Russel Herder on the process of graphics design and messaging and message placements, along with Asian American Film Director/Producer James Y. Shih who has focused on Script Development, with below topics:
• Three Act Structure: beginning, inciting incident, rising conflict, midpoint, climax, resolution, closing.
• How to use screenwriting software: Writer duet
• Film production: finding crew, cinematography, working with actors, sound,
• Post-production: sound theory, voice over, SFX, foley, color theory
• How to use free video editing software. Backup files, organizing files.
• Film distribution: submit to film festivals
• What to look for in films: philosophy of appreciating films
These industry experts’ presentations have provided a very helpful framework for the interns to sharpen their creativity and think about developing messages on topics for their communities and how to target audiences through various platforms. Participants then created peer-to-peer educational messages and posted at www.youthincharge.org and at their own social media platforms to support the concerned issues, and accumulated their own portfolio for future employment opportunities. They also completed a 3-4 minutes long final products to showcase their families’ refugee and immigration stories. And the final projects for the web development cohort are to design websites for area senior center and children daycare center.
Our youth and young adult interns not only involve in learning Multimedia/IT skills, but put their skills to use and support products that will improve the social conditions for their neighborhoods. Please check out their works at www.youthincharge.org.
