Reel Works was honored to be invited to a special career awareness event at NBCUniversal. The day began with a tour of their spaces including news studios, control rooms and the SNL stages. After getting an overview of the different shows that NBCUniversal houses, industry professionals shared about their work and what they do. One of our Career Exploration participants, Yesmil Cepeda, said “Attending the NBCU Tour was very eye-opening for me and made me understand that there are more careers than I ever imagined in the industry. There’s truly something for everyone!”

A key tenet of Reel Works’ mission statement is 1:1 mentorship between an industry professional and a youth filmmaker. Reel Works currently has over 50 volunteer mentors working individually with after-school students. Mentorship yields positive outcomes for both personal development and the quality of films produced by first-time filmmakers.

Reel Works’ young filmmaker community was thrilled to participate in Paramount Network's Season of Giving event again this past holiday season! This volunteer day is a special bi-annual event where industry professionals at Paramount Network provide the opportunity to learn about different career paths within the industry, as well as share their expertise and real-time insights and feedback on our young filmmakers’ feature pitches!

Reel Works is proud to feature and spotlight powerhouse Hair and Makeup Artist, Podcaster, and Reel Works Alumni Kelly Alfonso! Kelly Alfonso was born on the island of Trinidad & Tobago in the West Indies. From a young age, Kelly has had her hands in pageantry and visual arts. Kelly studied Visual Arts at Cambridge University. With a B.A. from the University of West Indies, Cosmetology License from Empire Beauty School, and a career working in corporate America for a beauty brand, Kelly had a fine-tuned understanding of how the beauty industry runs and how to be a highly functioning successful woman. However, with all this, she still felt something was missing and that she wanted to find a way to share her accomplishments and express herself artistically.

Kayla Scott recently joined Reel Works as the Recruitment Coordinator with the MediaMKRS Career Development team to drive trainee outreach objectives. Her mission is to increase awareness about the various programs and bring in applicants that have been previously underrepresented in the media and entertainment industry.

On December 16th, Reel Works collaborated with Sandbox Films to host award-winning director and producer Sara Dosa, to learn more about her process of making Fire of Love. The conversation was moderated by Reel Works Board Member and Sandbox Films’ Head of Production and Executive Producer, Jessica Harrop.

Over the last few weeks, the students in the Narrative Lab have delved into their projects, exploring wants vs. needs, story structure, character development, and the occasional camera challenge. This December, the Narrative Lab pitched their stories to the community at Paramount Network. With their story cards in hand, they shared their pitches and are incorporating the feedback they received from professional filmmakers into their screenplays.

Reel Works was excited to work with The Mill this November to provide our students with unique insights into the post-production industry. The Mill visited our classes to share about different parts of the post-production process including planning, editing and VFX.

Reel Works held our 2nd community 48-Hour Film Challenge, organized by 2022 Reel Works Youth Ambassadors. Youth Ambassadors are a group of student and alumni leaders who curate and spearhead youth-led events for our community to participate in.

Over Halloween weekend students received individual filmmaking roles to participate in this horror-themed film competition. During the competition 30+ students, alumni and volunteers were divided into teams and assigned a frightening costume to help jump-start their ideas.

Anna Wang joined Reel Works in September as Grants Manager. In this role, Anna writes and oversees a growing portfolio of foundation, corporate, and government grants to support Reel Works' robust programming. She engages funders and seeks to build new and lasting relationships with the ultimate intention of expanding access to quality arts education and media career readiness for young artists, especially those in under-resourced communities.

Calli, a 14-year-old emerging filmmaker from Brooklyn, shared, “I had fun learning how to use the camera. It was very different from the camera that I have used before. Learning how to use the camera will definitely help me in the future.”

On Thursday, October 27th, Reel Works celebrated the 2022 Career Exploration Graduates in a formal graduation ceremony to honor the participants' achievement in finishing the program. We had 38 students complete the Career Exploration program with 11 of them having already obtained jobs in the media industry.

Over three hundred audience members made their way to the SVA Theatre in Manhattan, to watch 21 short films at the 1st Annual Reel Works’ Film Festival. Consisting of works from our Documentary, Narrative, In Schools, and Fellows film labs, the festival celebrated emerging filmmakers from historically marginalized communities in order to bring them to a wider audience and bring greater representation to the film industry.

The fall is a special time of year for the Reel Works community because it’s when we enroll the next cohort of students into our Documentary Lab, Narrative Lab, and Fellows Program! Soon our classroom spaces will be full with students everyday after school. What makes these programs especially unique is that each student in our afterschool programs will be paired 1:1 with a professional filmmaker to serve as a mentor.

Zakiya Muhammad is one of the newest additions to the Reel Works team. They will be working with the MediaMKRS program as the Career Exploration Program Coordinator. In this role, they will be supporting Reel Works Alumni as they explore the media field and complete work-readiness courses.

Reel Works held a 48-hour film challenge with students from all across our community who signed up for various roles such as screenwriter, director, producer, cinematographer and editor. The challenge was a fun activity and creative outlet that was supported by professional filmmaker mentors who assisted the students every step of the way!

The Studio at Reel Works is an Emmy Award-winning production company that hires talented emerging filmmakers to collaborate with professional media makers to create content for clients. This summer, The Studio joined the Creative Impact Lab, a new initiative from NBCUniversal that helps apprentices from diverse backgrounds hone their production skills. Mirroring the aim of The Studio itself, this program from NBCU helps the next generation of content creators break into the media industry and learn the trade.

This past Summer, Reel Works launched its first Supported Summer Lab, an experimental filmmaking class for neurodivergent students. Over the course of four weeks, four students from around the city came together to learn camera operation, editing, color, camera motion, and a brief dip into experimental filmmaking. The result was four playful films that ranged from a narrative where a bug stands between a young woman and an important interview, to an Andy Warhol-like dive into color. Students went on three trips over the course of the lab to gather footage for their short films from the New York City Ferry, DUMBO, Prospect Park, and their local neighborhoods.

Career Lab is a program that serves as a bridge from Reel Works filmmaking programs to real career experiences. Through this program, students take work readiness classes, attend workshops with media companies including American Documentary and NBCUniversal, and tour colleges. Sonam, a current participant of Career Lab, summarized our program well: “One thing I like about this class is the balanced combination of career-related trips and career workshop sessions… Career Lab teaches me that having a career in film is possible and prepares students with the proper skills to succeed.”

The Reel Works experimental filmmaking Summer Lab of 2022 has been one of our most successful yet. The newest batch of students are exhilarated to be out of quarantine, making new friends, and eagerly devouring our cinematic material. They are learning from the greats across all disciplines and cultures of cinema history. Students know that hearing from artists with myriad experiences and backgrounds is an important part of having a worldly appreciation for this craft.