Michelle Keyes teaches at the Woodlands Christian Academy in
Houston and she spent her summer with 20 of her students.
Keyes’ students were excited about the prospect not
necessarily because they love school, but because Keyes took them
to the UCLA Arts Camps.
In their first year, UCLA’s camps cover various theater,
film and television topics from sitcom writing to dance. According
to Keyes, the program is a success.
“It was L.A., and I know this is where you need to be.
I’ll definitely be back next year,” Keyes said.
While originally only 150 students were expected for the entire
summer, the numbers indicate demand for the programs. Last week
UCLA hosted 134 kids in four camps. Next week 155 kids will
participate in three camps. Some came from as far as Philadelphia
and the Cayman Islands. The only requirement for admission to the
camps is the ability to pay for the $775 to $925 fee.
According to Myrl Schreibman, who teaches the Performance for
the Camera camp, one Baltimore high school junior wanted to go to
the camp so much, he worked two jobs to be able to attend.
Founded by Judith Patterson, a former actor and producer, the
UCLA Arts Camps are part of the U.S. Performing Arts and Media
Camps, which also have sites at Pepperdine and Stanford. Seven of
the 12 camps are on the UCLA campus and run by UCLA professors and
administrators.
The participants stay for a week and take classes, go on field
trips and start projects. For example, the broadcast news camp went
to the premiere of “XXX” in Westwood, where local
television crews were covering the event. They also visited TV
station KCOP an hour before its news show broadcast. In addition,
the campers worked on their own projects, where they chose topics,
did research, filmed footage and completed a one-minute news
story.
Broadcast news camper Hathanh Nguyen, a high school senior from
Pasadena, Calif., is considering it for her career.
“When something big happens, like Sept. 11, to be able to
turn on the TV and see a familiar face giving you information is
reassuring,” Nguyen said. “To be able to provide that
for someone else is a nice way of doing what I like and serving
others at the same time.”
While some campers are fulfilling their dreams, others are using
the camp to try out new fields and see how they like them.
“It’s making me realize whether I want to be an
actress when I grow up. In some ways, it makes me feel like I
don’t want to do it,” said Performance for the Camera
camper Rachel Williams, a high school sophomore who now realizes
that she would rather pursue her other dream of creating a
magazine. “In a way it’s a good thing, because now I
know what I want to do.”
The program not only introduces campers between the ages of 11
to 18 to the professional world of the entertainment industry, it
also gives them a taste of UCLA. UCLA students mentor the campers
and give them tours of the school. Students also get to stay in the
Dykstra or Sunset dorms.
“The kids come here and bond with the university,”
said Schriebman. “It’s somewhat of a recruiting as
well. One of the advantages of this program introduces these kids
to what UCLA is about.”
The programs are held mostly in Meltnitz and Macgowan, where
students edit their films, practice combat for fight scenes on
camera or stage and practice improvisational acting. The
Performance for the Camera campers performed short excerpts from
films such as “Legally Blonde,” “Ferris
Buller’s Day Off” and “When Harry Met
Sally” in the sculpture garden with UCLA student
directors.
“I’m directing them for the camera so that they have
that experience,” said Alberto Barboza, a fifth-year graduate
student in film. “Acting for the camera is a lot different
than acting for the stage.”
While most students wanted to be in front of the camera, many
got experience behind the cameras as well. During film shoots, the
campers had to work the microphones and the boom, which involves
moving the camera high in the air. In the broadcast news camp,
camper Kris Kachurak did not complete his project because he worked
as a producer for his fellow campers’ projects.
“I like the technical aspects, editing, cinematography,
all the behind the scenes stuff,” Kachurak said.
By Friday, the fruits of the week-long camp are shown to parents
who often fly in to pick up their children and see what their kids
worked on. The theater camp did improvisation and combat scenes.
The sitcom, Performance for the Camera and broadcast news camps did
screenings of their works. The playwriting camp had their scenes
performed by professional actors.
After the popularity of the inaugural year, Schriebman hopes to
expand the program to accommodate more students and more
interests.
“We’re going to experiment,” Schriebman said.
“We know this is a success. We have some ideas for other
camps.”