Last week, 5Point Adventure Film went on a mini-tour of the Valley’s middle schools during the very first “5Point Education Week.” This reporter attended the organization’s visit to Carbondale Middle School (CMS).
I entered the CMS auditorium a bit too early and walked in on a drama class performing a scene. I tried my best to not be disruptive, but I’m guessing I didn’t go completely unnoticed as I sat in the back of the theater and pulled out my notebook and a clunky camera. I apologize to the drama class if that was, indeed, the case.
After waiting anxiously for a few minutes, I luckily got the chance to interview Luis Yllanes, the executive director of 5Point Film, on a bench outside the auditorium (we had to relocate after we were hushed by the aforementioned drama class).
“We’ve thought about how we can develop a new program that’s targeted toward middle schools, to really have an impact on students — to inspire them,” Yllanes shared when asked what the goal was for education week. “We want to bring the 5Point experience to middle schoolers.”
He elaborated that this is a trial run, to get a sense of how a similar program could play out in the future.
“We learned a lot in this first year. We’ll see how this program connects what the students think [with] what the teachers think,” stated Yllanes. “Then when we come back, because we want to do this again in the future, we’ll see how we can learn and how we can develop this so we can improve it and maybe even customize it for other schools.”
After the interview with Yllanes, the assembly began. To keep it brief, it was clearly a hit. The students were in awe watching the films and then having the opportunity to engage with the event’s host: filmmaker, conservationist and comedian Eeland Stribling.
From this reporter’s observations, “5Point Education Week” may just be the beginning of a long-standing tradition of sharing the art of filmmaking in school settings, exposing students to the world of adventure filmmaking.
