Film projects help lift girls' self-esteem by Scott Merzbach

Daily Hampshire Gazette, July 30, 2002

Not everyone would describe building a fire pit or constructing a staircase of logs and soil as summertime fun. But for Miranda Jacobus and Julia Kurtz, two 12-year-olds from Shutesbury, this work, which involves using shovels and wheelbarrows and doing some heavy-lifting, is a labor of love.

When complete, their work will become the sets used in an improvisational movie involving girls from the YWCA of Western Massachusetts in Springfield and being produced by ACT NOW!, a non-for-profit organization run by Nancy Fletcher.

Fletcher, who lives at the Belchertown home where the girls' landscaping work is being done, formed ACT NOW! two years ago as a way to empower young girls, especially those ages 11 and 14, though film projects in which girls create the stories they want to tell.

The project is funded partly by a $10,500 donation made by the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. Fletcher said that when they reach their teens, many girls stop speaking up and lose their self-esteem. "I want the girls to get their power through their actions," Fletcher said. Jacobus has been involved in some of these improvisational films for several years, acting in one titled "Family Reunion" and another where everything she speaks is in a language she described as gibberish.

"I've done it a lot, the first time I did it I was a lot younger," she said. Jacobus visited Fletcher's home earlier this summer, helping to clear out a shed when she became interested in preparing the property for the next movie. Miranda invited Kurtz to help.

"We do everything together," Miranda said Kurtz recently took part in the taping of improvised poetry, a project being tested by David Shepherd of Belchertown, the creator of MOVIExperience™ and Fletcher's inspiration.

The sets the girls are working on will be featured prominently in Fletcher's latest movie, which tells the story about several girls staying at their aunt's house and then getting lost in the woods. "There's no script, just a scenario they've made up," Fletcher said. The scenario was developed during a three-hour brainstorming session. When they are not on camera, the girls are still active participants, holding lights, monitoring sound, dressing sets, playing music and creating sound effects.

Fletcher notes that in 2001, women accounted for just 6 percent of movie directors, 10 percent of screenwriters and 17 percent of executive producers. Beyond lifting girls self esteem, Fletcher sees the improvisational movie making as a way of getting more women involved in the production side of film.