RECYouth
RECYouth is ‘Reel’ Education and Communication for Youth.
RECYouth, hosted at 11 computer resource centers in New York City, offers free digital technology workshops and classes for pre–teens and teens, and exposes them to marketable multimedia skills as they discover their creative imaginations, develop community awareness, make movies, photographs, animations, and music. In this program, media literacy is contingent to media production as youth create as they investigate, innovate, and interpret the world around them.
As part of the RECYouth program, pre–teens and teens ages 12 to 17 are introduced to many possible career options within the media industry in New York, but, more importantly, they are encouraged to engage the media landscape while they expand their creative imaginations, their consciences, their community awareness, and the implicit challenges and discoveries they soon face as young adults.
RECYOUTH Summer Institute
July 1 to August 14, 2009Registration begins May 1 through June 15, 2009. Enrollment limited.
Multimedia production internships for youth age 14 to 17 in Digital Photography, Narrative Video, Documentary Video, Graphic Design, Animation, Multimedia Design, Illustration and Audio Production.
All workshops are free of charge for youth age 14-17 with recreation center membership (free to youth age six to 17) and are held out of Computer Resource centers in recreation centers in Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens.
Summer Registration has closed. Please send email to recyouth@parks.nyc.gov to be included in our email list for future programming information.
Documentary and Narrative Video Production
Teen RECYouth producers, directors, and cinematographers citywide are creating film treatments, writing scripts, scouting locations, planning shot sequences, shooting video, editing footage using Final Cut Pro, and authoring their own titles sequences and animations using industry standard multimedia software. They are making dramatic films about love and love lost, neighborhood dynamics, horror, and comedy. Their experimentations in documentary film and autobiography are poignant, insightful, curious, and challenging.
Digital Photography
At centers staffed with photographic expertise, students interested in digital photography have access to state of the art Digital SLR cameras donated by Sony. They are encouraged to serve in the RECYouth press corps and develop portfolios of their best works. This year teens have photographed many events, ranging from coverage of the Tribeca Film Festival Youth Fellows screening to Parks & Recreation Festivals such as Winter Jam, Street Games, and Drums Along the Hudson. Two times a year, juried exhibitions of the best RECYouth photographers are held to honor winning photographers.
Music and Audio Production
At Hamilton Fish, St. Mary’s, Sunset, and St. Johns, pre–teens are learning about the sounds of different instruments, rhythm, timing, and tempo using audio authoring programs. Teens are using state of the art tools to compose and edit audio for their own films. They are also learning about contemporary music production as they use audio authoring tools to create spoken word performance pieces as well as sound scores for their own movies.
Game Design
At select centers, preteens and teens are learning to design interactive games and videos. The fundamental logic and process-oriented thinking required of them helps them develops rational thinking and creative problem solving skills.
RECYouth Press Corps
RECYouth Press Corps teens participate in NYC Parks events, create news shows, and report on pressing issues of the day. Citywide, groups of teens are learning how to cover the news in the parks as well as in their communities, to develop their interview tactics and hone their technical camera and audio skills. Youth are encouraged to complete and publish their assignments as event-specific forums.
RECYouth Summer Institute
This summer, RECYouth will be leading multimedia programs at five centers, hosting classes of 10 to 15 teens per program. Each summer for six weeks, students are assigned jobs as game designers, videographers, photographers, cyber–journalists, web and magazine designers, animators, and audio producers.