Film camp teaches girls to believe in themselves

Amherst Bulletin, July 10, 2009

Who do girls have to look up to these days? Is it Paris and Lindsay? Maybe Barbie or Bratz?

Nancy Fletcher, executive director and founder of ACT NOW!, wants to show young girls that they can grow up to be so much more than unthinking sex objects. She's been doing this for the better part of a decade by running MOVIExperience Playshops, improvisational filmmaking for young girls who hail from all over the Pioneer Valley.

Her goal: to keep girls listening to their own, true voices.

"The most challenging (thing) is to keep intact their sense of their self, throughout the treacherous years when they're told by all of society's cues that they are just decoration. They know they're not, they know they have a lot of capability, but if that's what they're seeing, this is very dangerous," said Fletcher.

This disconnect, said Fletcher, creates emotional problems for girls and costly problems for society.

"The American Psychological Assoication came out a couple of years ago showing the impacts that the sexualization of women has had on girls, and how it screws them up, and they turn into eating disorders, and drug abuse and even suicide," said Fletcher.

When Fletcher chooses mentors for each film workshop, she aims to host women who have excelled in their chosen profession, especially those who have found success in an area that workshop participants may discover during teh moviemaking expereince. A recent mentor was Rachel Muller-Lust, a vice president at ABC TV.

This year's guest mentors at the July 13-17 workshop will be 11 members of the UMass women's basketball team. Fletcher was proud of having the UMass women working with the program during the 37th anniversary year of Title IX, the federal law bringing gender equality to schools.

Since ACT NOW!'s founding in 2000, the nonprofit has aided some 500 girls in producing 31 movies. About half of the young girls who participate in the MOVIExperience are minority and about 45 percent are considered "at risk," according to a release from ACT NOW!

To counter the risks of growing up in the modern world, Fletcher's group takes the same media that is affecting girls adversely and uses it for a positive effect, she said.

At the workshops, the girls scout the locations, come up with some possible themes that incorporate a real-life situation and conflict resolution, and vote on one idea they want to make come alive. They create characters, and put together an outline of 18 scenes. The workshop leader tweaks the outline to make sure that everyone gets enough airtime.

This summer session will be shot around the Emily Dickinson Homestead and Henry Hills House.

After getting the outline together, the kids sign up for crew positions and cast themselves. Most will work in front of and behind the camera. And the props come from the girls' homes.

The films tend to cover serious subject matter. Fletcher cited one example about a young girl trying to keep her family together after their father disappears while fighting in Iraq.

ACT NOW! also offers classes that train women so they can use the workshop model in school settings, in camps and in their own agencies, or o they can make a little money.

Fletcher said the experience is transformative, recalling an interaction with one young girl in particular, whose impromptu response during an on-camera interview with Fletcher left her speechless.

"She said, 'Before, I used to think I was going to become a low-life. When I came here, everything changed. I'm going to have a life, and I'm going to stay in school," said Fletcher. "I nearly dropped the camera. I said that's exactly what I wanted. It's such a potent process."

Kelsey Brown, 18, of Belchertown, took Fletcher's classes in 2004 when she was 13 and then worked up through the ranks at ACT NOW!. She is now a coach-in-training and the president of the Interactors, a group of alumnae from the program. This fall, Brown is going to Mount Holyoke College.

Brown - who has a background in theater, - said when she was done with her first filmmaking session, she felt like she had accomplished something.

"It was the first time I had walked away with something to show for it," said Brown. "I felt really proud of what I had done, which is partially why I went back.

ACT NOW! gave Brown a sense of responsibility and a good glimpse of a career in filmmaking. More important, for young girls, "it really brings you out of your shell."