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.

The young filmmakers of our Advanced Documentary Lab breathe nervous sighs in anticipation of the debut of their films. Family, friends, faculty, mentors, and industry partners flood the space.

The 2022 Reel Works in Schools Film Festival welcomed over 50 film entries from over 500 New York City public school students. The films displayed a diversity of genres at the festival that reflects the range of courses available in our In-Schools Program.

For several years, Reel Works has had the wonderful opportunity to partner with Paramount and participate in the Paramount Community Day. Volunteers came together from all backgrounds with the purpose to give back to young filmmakers in our programs.

Every month Reel Works hosts a Master Class with top industry professionals to expand our students' sense of possible career pathways. In the last few months, we’ve hosted talent agents, gaffers, set designers, and most recently, editor and director Farah X.

Farah’s clients include Mariah Carey, Prince, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and more. Her big directing debut was with a feature documentary on fashion and hip hop called The Remix. Although Farah has worked with some incredible celebrities, her advice was grounded and accessible.

Reel Works has been thrilled to take our MediaMKRS participants and filmmaking lab students on tours of famous camera equipment rental facility, Panavision.

Thank you for making our ChangeMakers Gala a huge success! Together, we raised over $500,000 to support Reel Works filmmakers.

On Monday, April 4th, Reel Works held our third Town Hall on Access to the Media and Entertainment Industry. The goal of the event was to help young filmmakers explore barriers that must be overcome to break into the industry and what strategies they can take to pursue their dreams as creators.

As Reel Works toured the empty hallways of P.S. 272K – a public elementary school located in Canarsie of Brooklyn – we marveled at the excitement exuded by the administration. The school's Principal, Verna Taylor, directed us into a large classroom filled with stacked chairs and student desks. "This room is used for storage now but will eventually be our media studio", Principal Verna exclaimed! We fervently took down notes as the principal described what this future studio will be used for – a news broadcast show, supported by Reel Works, that will be directed and produced by the students of P.S. 272K. The title of the production would become known as "The Believe Show".