Being a filmmaker in Hollywood can often just be the stuff of unrealized dreams. But the Echo Park Film Center, a nonprofit community arts center, helps to make some of these dreams a reality.
Founded in 2002, the center not only seeks to provide the community with rare film screenings and an extensive video library, but to instruct area kids in filmmaking. Aided by volunteers who are passionate about fostering the youths’ creativity through the medium of film, the center is essentially a one-room schoolhouse that doubles as a theater and a movie resource database.
The film center’s operations director Lisa Marr got involved with the center at the beginning of its creation because of her budding interest in film.
“I was a musician and a writer for many years … and had just gotten into film,” Marr said. “I happened to live in this neighborhood and saw the storefront, so I walked in.”
Marr is one of around two dozen volunteers at the center and does things ranging from planning events to managing the store to teaching filmmaking classes. A key aspect of the center is filmmaking instruction, and it offers free classes for kids age 12 through 19, free senior citizen classes and reduced-price adult workshops.
“It is a labor of love, and we do it because we love teaching and are passionate about filmmaking and community activism,” Marr said.
The center’s East Side location has certainly helped in its ability to appeal to a wide variety of people with varied interests.
“Echo Park is a very diverse neighborhood and our students definitely reflect that diversity,” Marr said. “The idea is to bring everyone within our community together. … It’s about storytelling; it’s about sharing; it’s about learning in a relaxed environment; it’s about celebrating with a new medium of creativity.”
Volunteer and youth instructor Lee Lynch has been involved with the center for seven years. While he’s always been passionate about filmmaking, he hadn’t had the opportunity to experience it in a free-form haven like the Echo Park center, having grown up in a small town that lacked artistic opportunities.
“I didn’t really have a place like this when I grew up, so when I found out about this place and met (founder) Paolo (Davanzo), I just figured this was exactly where I wanted to be, … giving youth the opportunity,” Lynch said.
Lynch is currently taking part in instructing what he calls a “free-form experimental documentary class” that focuses on street art in the Echo Park neighborhood.
Woodrow White, a high school student at Renaissance Arts Academy, has grabbed this opportunity. White first found out about the center through a few friends in 2006 and was immediately hooked.
“The equipment struck me as really great, especially since I have been making movies since I was 6,” he said.
Four classes later, White is currently working on a short documentary about graffiti art and has discovered “how it has been around since the dawn of man (cave paintings) and how it is always going to be around as long as man is around.”
“I sort of see this place as a way to create film but to put limits on what my film should be about,” White said. “I also get to make films with a bunch of other kids, see what they are up to, and I really get the chance to get my hands on the equipment that I can’t always get at home.”
The films the students make are often made for less than $20 and give them a medium to express what is meaningful to them. One student made a documentary about Dodger Stadium’s impact on Chavez Ravine.
The center also screens experimental and documentary films every Thursday and has an extensive film library containing rare films not available in regular video rental stores. Marr said that they also rent out small-scale film equipment like Super 8 cameras and projectors with the hope that they can get people excited about shooting footage on actual film rather than digitally.
One of the most unique projects that the center recently undertook was called the Filmmobile, where they converted an old school bus into a mobile theater and classroom. Davanzo and Marr came up with this idea after going on a work-related trip to a reservation in South Dakota.
“It is a beautiful community, but a community where there is so many stories to tell but very limited access to film,” said Marr. “We thought it would be a great idea to share our knowledge of filmmaking and community storytelling with that community.”
The Filmmobile tries to work with non-traditional venues while still keeping with the free workshops and screenings.
UCLA Extension student Sharmaine Starks was involved with the film center Filmmobile’s Neighborhood Documentary Project. The project joined the Watts House Project by giving the local youth of Watts Towers the opportunity to document the beautification of their community.
Starks has volunteered almost every day at the center for nearly a year and is in charge of scouting locations for the Filmmobile’s public-screening series.
Starks, like most other volunteers at the center, is motivated by a love for storytelling and the passion of the other volunteers.
“I really like the spirit of what they do,” Starks said. “It is completely about supporting film and putting good-quality work out there. … They truly are there for the community.”