Cafesociety.org spent 5 years working with schools and young people on several of the Native American reservations in Arizona. Here is a selection of those Films made during Cafesociety.org digital workshops with young people on the Navajo , Hopi and Gila River Indian Community reservations. [1998 - 2003].
 

Our largest project to date on the reservation was REZ02 and invloved 8 creative practitioners visiting Arizona to hold a series of new media workshops with young people.

On July 18th 2002, a crew of 8 digital artists made their way from the UK and Holland to Arizona, USA to create a series of digital stories working with a selection of native american and rurally isolated young people.

Firstly we aimed to deliver a language and culture based multimedia project, showing students how to use film making equipment, web design, photography and computer animation to tell a story. 

The project explored Language Ecology which is the preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity. By using multimedia and film making projects we equipped the young people with new skills to record and preserve their own heritage and stories. 

The second goal of the project was to open up discussion with teaching staff from schools in Arizona to the possibility of future ways of collaboratively working and developing online curriculum projects and materials with schools in the Withernsea and South Holderness region of England.

We believe in the necessity for the preservation and celebration of all voices and if the youth are empowered with the skills to use modern day communications technologies, they can continue to speak out in their own voices, protecting and promoting their own cultures as they see fit.

Today is our last workshop day at San Manuel, our final day of the three weeks workshops here in Arizona and our last chance to tweek and tune work and upload it to the internet; today will be a busy one.

Things start at 8.00am with an interview with Geoff Parker, a representative of BHP, the mining company that closed in San Manuel 2 years ago leaving the majority of the workers here without jobs. Nirit, Jon and Raquell get a tour of the mine by Geoff Parker and are given the company line on the past present and future of the situation. From a 3600 workforce there are now 36 employees here. Mostly they are involved in administration and in the company’s attempts to clear up and re-landscape the immense layered quarry that sits at the side of the town and is evidence of past industry.

Meanwhile at the school Murray, Annabel and Gill work with the other students on post production. Annabel is editing the footage for the students video- “When the Clock Stops…”, Gill is working on titles for the film and Murray is producing more weird and dark sounds for SFX. We have a 3.00pm deadline and a screening in the auditorium at 6.00pm with students, family and members of the community- it’s touch and go whether we’ll make it.

Nirit, Jon and Raquell return and Jon sets off to do all those geeky things that enable the web site to expand and work- compressing footage, editing photos, grabbing audio, uploading and so on. Gill organises some last minute poster making with the students whilst Nirit and Rauell set to work on the gargantuan task of trying to make sense of the many hours of footage that has been filmed around the mining issue. There’s tons of good footage but she feels we won’t have time to do it justice with so little time left, a rough cut is called for.

A huge and welcome Mexican lunch of deep fried chillis and refried beans goes down well but the food and heat give us all a bit of an afternoon food coma. Murray and Gill go off for some “Mountain Dew”, a fizzy drink reminiscent of cough medicine but with enough caffine in there to wake the dead.

Back in the school it’s much of the same, by 3pm the students start to drift off to get ready for the 6pm screenig, we have a couple of quiet hours to tidy and finish things off.

The auditorium is huge semicircular affair, the stage goes back at least 20 metres, Annabel and Bob set up the projector and sound, Gill has a dance around the stage, imagining she is Elvis, Luke and Chris make popcorn and set up stall at the enterance. Meanwhile Nirit is working frantically to get her rough cut on to tape as poeple start arriving.

After a short intro from Bob we show the weeks work and talk about the workshops, the students bravely get on stage to explain their own roles and opinions on the weeks work to many rounds of applause.

As people leave, we shake hands and hug and there are at least a few tears. The students have been amazing this week, full of energy and so keen to participate.

With well deserved beers we spend an evening with Bob Shogren (the guy that invited us over here) discussing the prospects of furthering what we have done. Already the school has been offered funds to buy equiptment and potential sponsors have also shown interest in supporting digital media education.

It seems to have been a great success, respect to the people of San Manuel who welcomed us openly and with such enthusiasm.

When the clock stops: Annabel continued full steam ahead editing, inputting sound effects - created by Murray and Luke and working on the intro sequence with a crew of students that continue to amaze her with their skills and ideas. Meanwhile, Gill worked with a group to design a flyer to announce the community showing of the film.

Memory lane: Raquel and Abe worked with Nirit to interview people about their memories of the day the mine closed. Everyone has been very keen to talk about it, perhaps finding it a release to talk. Some of the younger people moved from remembering the trauma of that day to speak about what happened afterwards and it appears that; for them - after the initial shock, they did in fact find other pathways, new horizons. The older people on the other hand reported more problems in moving on.

They interviewed a range of people including: a pharmacist from the hospital; a young mother whose husband was laid off; the brother of Raquel who is 31 and has since found a better job; some older community members; the owner of one of the supermarkets (so they could explore how the mine’s closure affected local business).

Most of the crew finished up late today. Around 7.30 Nirit was still filming interviews with Abe, while a lady waiting to clean finally kicked Jon and Lucy out of the computer room.

After school

Pool party: Directly across and down the road a little is the town’s only swimming pool and tonight was the night of a Christian youth groups pool party. The crew went across to lend a hand. Murray was Djing. A little bizarre for us, it was fun all the same. Music is music and most of the time it was good. The atmosphere was relaxed and a change is as good as a break after all. Lots of kids running around, nice lighting and a sky full of stars. Only a couple of times was Murray asked to take a particular songs off. And one time that was George Michael. He honestly thought he was being careful.

The day began with the crew’s favourite thing - an early morning start. 7 a.m. and a fresh faced bunch were down at the local Rotary club to give a presentation about why they are here and what exactly it is they are doing with the town’s students. Apparently the mission of The Rotary Foundation is to “support the efforts of Rotary International in the achievement of world understanding and peace through local, national, and international humanitarian, educational, and cultural programs”.

The Rez02 presentation went down well and the breakfast laid on was greatly appreciated by all.

At School

Project development: The first part of the morning was spent checking out the remaining locations for the student’s ghost story film. One of the locations they went to explore was the now abandoned junior school. The school has been empty for a year, ever since the number of pupils attending dramatically dropped following the closure of the mine.

This location was so good and the students were so well prepared (they’d even brought their costumes and props with them) that the test shoot promptly turned into the real thing and the crew shot two full scenes for the film on the spot.

When the Clock Stops: After lunch the students continued storyboarding and developing visual angles for future scenes - they also came up with the name for the film: “When the clock stops”.

This group has amazed Annabel, she’s never worked with such organized students! Equally impressive has been the way the students operate as a group, very supportive of each one another’s various talents.

On this day: While Annabel and Gill worked with the industrious storyboarding group, Jon and Nirit organized a second film to work on. This film that will explore the day the mine closed down, June 23rd 1999. Nirit will work closely with Raquel, an older student who will learn the ropes and be left with the skills to continue the exploration with the younger students when the crew have left. Other students and community members will tell the day as they remember it.

After School

More location spotting: Jon and Nirit went to check out the mine area itself for shooting there early in the morning. Others worked and rested at Bob’s place.

Little Mexico: Dinner was about a 15 minute drive away in another small town called Mammoth or ‘Little Mexico’ (so called because of the majority Mexican community. We dinned at Alicia’s Cafe. A very basic place atmosphere wise, the food more than made up for it - delicious! Full we returned to Bob’s to work a little more, then it was an early night for some while others stayed up working.

Back to work. The crew arrived at the school from their respective ‘host homes’ around 8.30am. The school is a sprawling complex set against the backdrop of a jagged mountain range. It’s monsoon season at the moment so the air is heavy and fairly misty which gives the whole place an eerie kind of feel. Perhaps especially when you know that the mine as closed two years ago and this has been the cause of a lot of misery in the town.

The kids are a mix of Anglo and Hispanic and are once again a lively bunch, a little older than the last schools we were at. Most of the group know each other from school and are supportive of one another’s various skills.

Circle: Activities began with the kids gathering in a storytelling circle. One person began, then the story continued around the circle, with each student adding another element to the storyline. The process was filmed by a couple of the students in order to introduce them the presence of the camera.

Digitizing Stories: This initial process was then developed as a handful of students either elaborated on the circle story or told their own story to camera. After a short break the students were then given a demonstration about how to take the media input they created this morning and digitize the footage.

Narrative: After lunch (which was had in perhaps the only shopping mall in the town, at a sandwich bar, opposite the school) the group reviewed the material from the morning. Laura’s story was picked up on, which developed into a script based around a haunted school.

The students discussed narrative techniques in film, ways to storyboard and brainstorm and they began thinking about all aspects of production, audio and post -production. An inspired and enthusiastic bunch the students soon began to run with ideas, suggestions for locations and Chris began drawing out storyboard. He is a talented illustrator.

Murray worked with a small group trying out some audio ideas, including laying a track under one of the girls singing. By the end of the discussions the choice was to fuse three or four of the school ghost stories into one piece.

Roles: After Annabel explained to them the time constraints and how they might have to condense their ideas the students began allocating roles amongst the group (location scout, story boarding etc). By the end of the day the group were out scouting a few initial location ideas and began thinking about props and costumes to bring in tomorrow.

Strong beginnings: The day was such a success that the crew couldn’t actually get them to leave by the end of it!

After school

Meet and Shoot: After school the crew gathered for dinner at Bob’s place and discussed the day and plans for tomorrow. Dinner was delicious. This time it was Mexican food. After dinner some time was spent working before heading down to Bea’s bar to shoot some pool and relax before a 7am presentation to the town’s Rotary club in the morning!

Sunny Side up: We packed up the van again and left the motel by mid morning. A little further down the road we stopped off for an all American breakfast at a highway diner. Our coffee cups were filled up regularly, the pancakes had maple syrup and the eggs were sunny side up - we left bloated but happy.

Cactus rain: The destination of the day was San Manuel for the next week of workshops, but we decided to stop off at Saguaro National Park in order to see Sabina Canyon. The Canyon is part of the Sonoran Desert, which stretches way into Mexico. Cacti are everywhere, including varieties such as the tall stick-like ocotillo [oh-koh-tee -yoh], the fuzzy cholla [choy -yah] and the round saguaro [sah-hwa -roh].

When we arrived it was sunny. When we left it wasn’t. It is Monsoon season here, but so far we haven’t been caught too badly with this. We didn’t have much time anyway so we felt sure we could take a walk in the stunning nature without too much danger. Wrong. We took little bus out to the last stop on the trail, an experience that felt like we were at Universal Studios on the Indiana Jones ride. At the final stop we began walking. Not far up the trail the heavens opened. Spectacular at first the novelty of hot, heavy rain soon wore off. Feeling cold, we made our way back to get another bus back downhill - back in the van we turned the heater on for the first (and probably last) time this trip.

San Manuel: We arrived in San Manuel around 5pm. We were met at the local garage by Bob, the schools director. This is an old mining town. The mines used to provide for everyone in the town but were closed down two years ago. Since then a large part of the community have left and those that have stayed behind have to travel an average of three hours a day, both ways, to work. The community is mostly Hispanic, the rest white (Mormon). Problems this community face are linked mostly to drinking (and driving), young mothers and general apathy. Apparently there is not much crime in the way of stealing as there is nothing much to steal. We are staying with people who don’t lock their doors at night.

Bob treated us to a fine - not greasy; dinner! For this week we are staying at the houses of some of the teachers, who came over to meet us for dinner This might not continue as we often need to be together to work in the evenings, but the hospitality this evening was much appreciated.

Today was the crews first day off in nine days. Understandably the morning was spent with various people in bed, relaxing by the pool, eating lazy breakfasts and enjoying the fact that what had seemed like a ghost hotel all week was now buzzing with the energy of a very large family having a poolside reunion party! This friendly lot had laid on funky sounds and a big spread.

Open wide: Jon had an eventful morning of his own, as a toothache meant a trip to the dentists. Seems an American dentists is slightly more comfort orientated than a British dentists the potential trauma of the dentists chair over here is solved by a TV screen in front of you when you first sit in the chair and one directly above your head when the chair reclines back.. Jon had the pleasure of a ‘Changing rooms’ style program and a pretty dental nurse. It wasn’t a serious toothache, but he certainly feels much better now

And then there were six: Felix has other commitments for the next week so he spent the morning organizing a hire car and getting his stuff together.

By mid afternoon the new slimline crew of six (Jon, Nirit, Annabel, Murray, Gill and Lucy) set off destination South, towards San Manuel.

Lynchs’ land:

By mid evening we stopped at a roadside garage to ask for a recommendation for a nearby hotel. The place had a distinct David Lynch feel: gutted out race type cars lay like sculptures around the place, strange looking locals stopped by and two women sat like book ends on chairs outside a small shop and spoke to us about bizarre topics, from socks to Satan.

Sweet tooth: Wisely or not we did take the advice given at the garage and followed directions to a cluster of new motels a little further down the highway. We went for the first one we liked the look of. A good choice, the rooms were comfy and the guy working reception turned out to be a friendly Mexican, who is hoping to make his first film soon. Dinner was a place called the Cracker Barrel across from the motel.

The place was decked out like an old frontier restaurant: rocking chairs outside (where was that blues guitar) and an amazing assortment of pictures on the walls inside - from decidedly eerie paintings of people long gone, to classic Pepsi posters and bizarre signs.

The menu looked exciting to a crew whose stomachs have had more than enough of all the greasy, fired food that has been fed to us in the past two weeks (not that we didn’t like it, just too much of it!). We happily choose between vegetable plates, mashed potatoes and roasted (not fired) chicken, only to find that everything here is cooked in sugar. To say the ‘sweet’ baby carrots were sweet would be an understatement.

The shop, which led out from the restaurant, provided some after dinner amusement, classic American bits of nonsense. Back at the motel, the Mexican reception guy, Cesar, joined the crew for a drink later on.. we can’t disclose all that was said over drinks - but it got interesting and late.

Felix and Gill spent the day putting the finishing touches to NAT’s web site and Gill worked on further design to the REZ02 web site. Annabel edited the final cut of some of REZ news features with Brenalee: They cut a piece about a local fried bread stall, which has been on the same spot for the past five years and is known as the “Silver Bullet” and a sports report on what has turned out to be the game of the Rez - basketball. Some of the focus was on the trainers they wear around this area that are called, ‘AND1’. Apparently, the name is taken from a term used in the game when there has been a foul. Brenalee demonstrated a natural ability to edit.

Murray finished off the news jingles and interviewed George the local policeman about his efforts to keep the cultural heritage of this community alive. The stress of deadlines was eased during the day with a Fizzy rockets activity (involving sodium bicarbonate and water), which Anthony filmed. This activity went down so well and the film looked so good that Nirit, Anthony and Daniel worked on the fast edit to this in the afternoon and it was inserted as a fun ‘news’ item on REZ News. At the end of the day the work was shown to a room full of students, teachers and a couple of parents. All were impressed.

After packing up at the school a tired crew headed back to the hotel and relaxed for a while before most headed out to the karaoke bar next to the hotel. The bar manager apparently hates the karaoke as he has to put up with an assortment of people who think they can sing - three times a week. Tonight he had the pleasure of Felix crooning away. According to Annabel, the whole experience reminded her of a Denis Potter film. To finish the evening off the crew got chatting to the security guard who, naturally, asked where they were from? -England, replied Annabel, thinking that she would avoid being too specific, as he would not know where Hull is. To their surprise he replied that, when he was in the Navy, he had spent a great deal of time in Hull. Not only had he spent time there it is also one of his favorite places in the world. Just proves again that you never really know who you’re talking to.

Today was post production day for NAT films and further content creation for the internet site, NA Nirit and Annabel hooked up a projector and began editing the kids footage with them. Gill worked on more screensavers and downloadable desk tops with Chris and Felix and Lucy worked on creating some flash animated poetry with the other Chris (there are two in the class!) and Isaiah.

The poems and the images which will be flash animated (actually digital photos of paintings) have been donated to the Rez sites Poets corner and gallery by poet Mike the medicine man horse, governor of the school and full time artist.

Interviews:

In the afternoon, Nirit, Murray and Lucy were taken on a tour of the area by Mike. While he drove he talked to the camera about his community and his views on the culture, language, identity issues that they face. This is a community where there has been one culture or another trying to oppress them for eons.

Their language is dying and a great deal of their cultural roots have certainly been up rooted. Therefore these issues loom large. Mike is both optimistic while realizing the enormity of the problems. A charismatic man, Mike even took us to his house, in the village where he was chief for a while, stopping off to show us his workshop, where he paints.

Though not so much in the summer because of the oppressive heat and dust storms. No air conditioning in there! The streets were quiet, no-one out in the afternoon heat. As Mike rightly pointed out, only mad dogs and Englishmen step out in the afternoon sun. Although we met a few Rez dogs, it seemed to us that even they were smart enough to be in a cool shade somewhere.

A taste of India:

Jon, Murray, Felix, Nirit and Lucy were treated to another special evening meal by the school tonight. Jagdish invited us to his favorite Indian restaurant. Annabel and Gill were invited too of course, but were tired and stayed in the hotel.

Kate was there and Mike and his son came too. The food was fine, the English in the crew enjoying what is apparently now the national dish of England, an Indian curry. Table talk revolved around future plans to link up between Jon’s education projects in the UK and the projects running over here. Lucy, Murray and Isaiah (Mike’s son) discussed music, games and world politics (this 11 year old is tuned in) and on the drive back Nirit and Lucy drove with Kate where the talk turned to Hip Hop in the Arizona area and where the cheapest music stores are. A tired crew went back to the hotel around 10.30. So well behaved!

Project development: Today was a momentous day in one respect - the crew arrived early!

The reason for such an occurrence was that Felix and Jon were giving Jagdish a course in the software.

Rez news from NAT Films: The group of students led by Nirit and Annabel have decided to create a news program, “Rez news” Today was shoot day. At 9.30 the team left to

NAT (Native American Technology) design: The team led by Gill and Felix are creating a web site. They are mimicking a design company, so their site will show: their services and company profiles and have content such as downloads, games reviews, links, and a space to showcase NAT films. The NAT films content is coming through from Nirit’s and Annabel’s team.

Back at the hotel it was an evening of much needed rest and recuperation for the team. Not a lot to report really; laundry was done while chillin’ by the pool; pizza was eaten on the balcony while the tunes were provided through the crews portable speakers. All followed by an early night.

Diary note: Seems we forgot to mention that Nirit’s luggage was indeed returned to her after the airline lost it at the beginning of the trip. She has been receiving some concerned e-mails. She thanks all for their concern!