Youth Mental Wellness Reel Camp for Girls July 26-31, 2021
day-by-day
Day 1
We are back at Ka Waiwai this week and we are kicking off day one in the most befitting way for a space like this: sitting in a circle. As our lovely facilitators Punihei and Makanalani inform us, the circle is about pilina and bringing in/creating/maintaining solid, healthy, and fulfilling relationships. Our first session was concerned with bringing that mana into the space and ensuring it would be there as the foundation for participants as they tell their stories over the next few days. Through this circle, the story-sharing exercises, and vulnerability, honest connection, and aloha the participants and mentors shared/made with one another, there is a stronger papa to stand on and tell their stories from. Exercises like these as well as spaces like this one serve as reminders that this camp and everyone involved are here to maintain a brave and welcome venue for anyone who feels called to it. This is a platform through which one can share their stories or the stories of their people. This is a place where people will receive those stories and hold them safely.
Being in this pilina circle reinforced the mission that HWIF and these reel camps have. As we wrapped up for the day, everyone went around and shared a word on how they felt about the session. Day two will be a lot more filmmaking-focused and this circle helped to build a firm foundation to launch into that medium. Looking forward to what day two brings us.
Day 2
We open the second session up with a game. Everyone brought their shoes from the front to the center of the circle and, after shuffling them up, people had to come and pick one shoe from the pile and match it to the owner with the other half of the pair. Everyone had a few minutes with each other and once again, as usual with these camps, the space rose from individual whispers to the most beautiful chorus in just a short time. After the exercise, it was straight into the fundamentals of filmmaking. There is a good number of new participants mixed in with previous participants but everyone seems equally focused on the PowerPoint. Taking notes, nodding along, flashes of memory across the face from past camps, and excited jumping in one’s seat: everything one expects leading up to the hands-on camera work to follow. The majority of the session was spent on camera work and working directly with mentors to learn how to capture a shot as well as how to be in front of the camera.
Our closing was lead by Punihei and Makanalani and involved more pilina building exercises amongst the participants. Discussions about mental health, how we include or don’t include self-care in our lives, and how all of this looks different for everyone in the room were the main points of the kōrero. My favorite part of these exercises is watching everyone learn more about each other, both in how they are different but also how much they have in common. As young people trying to navigate this world and everything that comes with that. I have no doubt all these conversations will lead to something amazing in film form.
Day 3
We started our third session off with the question “what is your weather today?”. This is one of my favorite check-in questions. Sometimes we can’t name a feeling or emotion that will pin down how we are but images tend to work well. People can get a lot from phrases like “cloudy with some sun” or “rainy but still a little warm.” Or, if you’re like me, you can just gesture outside and everyone can literally see your mood transpire behind you through the glass. Images like these are really good for figuring out where people are and in a mental wellness camp, this is all around perfect.
After our check-in circle, Vera leads us through a presentation on production roles and the crews go straight into figuring out who does what right after. I can hear the conversations and laughing through my earphones and I can’t help but smile knowing everyone is getting excited about the process. Alongside the naming of each participant and their role in the film, we also get to hear the names of each crew. Noa’s crew has decided on Nameless Productions and Emily’s crew is Paper Hearts Studio. After practicing calling shots with the slate, the crews get a break and BTS once again fills the air-conditioned room. Then we enter into the ultimate brainstorming process: storyboarding.
The rest of the session is spent storyboarding and working out the script, setting, and storyline. We close the session in our pilina circle with some thoughts on the importance of brave space and one word from each of us on what helps us to be brave. Looking forward to the creative and artistic bravery we get to witness in the next few days.
Day 4
The question we had for our pilina circle at the beginning of session 4 was “what is something you would like to tell your character(s)? What is something you hope for them?”. We’re in one of the days where it’s workworkwork mode and so it’s important to be thinking about these things from a production and story-flow standpoint; but also it’s good to think about in relation to the theme of the camp, mental wellness. These characters are inevitably serving as commentary on mental wellness and how people go about achieving/not achieving that.
So it’s good to take a moment to think about those things, especially in regards to what one hopes a character has or gets to achieve when it comes to their mental state. I appreciated this exercise because I don’t often get to hear a lot about what a character is thinking or feeling internally. Most expressions are outward and we can see them, which makes sense given its a film. This exercise brings some of the interior world to the forefront I feel. The things not seen or expressed out loud. It extends a lot to us as people in this real, breathing, waking world of non-fiction; we show and tell people something outwardly but how is our interior world? What does that look like or sound like at any given moment? We should tend to that whenever we can.
The majority of the day was spent filming. Nameless Productions scouted The Church of the Crossroads as a potential location and decided to film there. Paper Hearts Studios set up a scene in the work corner next to mine and filmed in Ka Waiwai until just a few minutes before closing.
We closed with each participant sharing one word about the day and ensured we cleaned up and malama'd the place as best as we could before leaving. Onward we go.
Day 5
It’s crunch time for sure. Walking in a half-hour early before the session starts and there are already people from both teams. Re-creating their sets, putting together equipment, checking in with Vera, who is also going to be starring in one of the films. As 1:00 pm rolls around, everyone starts coming in one by one and going straight to their crews. While we would have normally had an opening circle, the clock is ticking for the crews to take advantage of the space and get as much footage as they can for the day. It’s kind of incredible to watch the ways in which the crews will switch off when it comes to filming. Every few takes the other crew will get a chance to start filming while the other one re-adjusts their sets or actors or simply waits for their turn. Each crew is set up on either side of the front door and most of the staff are huddled together on a long table in the middle of the room.
We spend most of the day turning the volume up and down in our voices. From rapid conversation turned up to 11 all the way to absolute silence as a crew gets a shot in; we are all working in flow with one another to get these films done. I am excited and proud of these participants and all of the mahi they are putting in towards these films. Looking forward to what transpires on the screen on Saturday.
Day 6
The evenings are colder now. The past two months have felt like pure heat at all hours as if the sun and its rays follow us into the night well after its setting. While it seems like perpetual summer in Hawaiʻi to people who aren’t from here or haven’t lived here long enough, the rest of us know this was just one of many extremely hot summers to come. Every year it gets hotter and we notice the uptick in degrees more and more. Climate change is real. The people of the Pacific feel it intensely. Thankfully, though, we are beginning to see the influx of cool air earlier in the day. No longer waiting till we get home to sit in front of the fan or going to the bathroom to splash water on our faces for a second because it is now 75 degrees at 6:00 pm instead of 80. We are seeing a shift. We are having cooler commutes home and chances to enjoy the sunset without fear of being fried. We are transitioning.
Much like our Reel Camps. From early June up to the very last day of July with a sliver of a break in between, HWIF has been hosting reel camps back to back to back. Meeting and re-meeting participants. Learning about new and familiar topics. Making new friends and re-uniting with old ones. Watching an entire film come to life from start to finish in a week’s time. And we are finally at the end of this specific cycle. Our summer of filmmaking has wrapped up and we find ourselves at the last showcase for summer 2021. The point of transition before the next equinox. Having cultivated and strengthened pilina both within the camp itself and through the sharing of films, we gather one more time in the circle that is Ka Waiwai to see what the participants have created in this last week. We gather together to see what Youth Mental Wellness looks and sounds like through the eyes of those who know it best.
Nameless Productions’ film, “Linda,” tells the story of a young girl who experiences manipulation and pressure from a supposed “friend,” Kathy, to let her cheat off her test. When they are both caught with the exact same results on the test, Kathy lies and makes it seem as if Linda is the one who cheated. After talking to her older sister about it and realizing that these actions are not what healthy friendships consist of, Linda finally decides to tell the teacher the truth and through this she gains more confidence in herself and her worth. Paper Hearts Studio’s film “Fake” shows an uneven relationship between two girls. One is trying earnestly to be a good friend while the other takes advantage and takes time away from activities that are important and meaningful to her friend. One of the girls ends up being stuck with the responsibility of ensuring the group project gets finished while the other one skips out to hang out with someone else. Much like the first film, the girl who is saddled with all of the work and who actually puts labor into this supposed friendship has a conversation with her mom, who encourages her to not give in to the negative tendencies of this person and to put herself first. This results in her telling her teacher that she did all of the work in the group project by herself and therefore receiving all of the credit, which is well-deserved. She learns that she is worth good things and that she deserves people that will appreciate her for who she is.
We’ve all grown up surrounded by a culture of self-sacrifice and burn out. We are encouraged by the colonial apparatus and capitalist mindset to throw out what feeds our souls and our spirit in favor of what feeds the proverbial machine. We see words like ‘grind’ and ‘hustle,’ and phrases like ‘no days off.’ We are taught that to get anywhere we must first let everyone take advantage of us. Go through hazing. Run around and do things for everyone else before ourselves. Grit our teeth and take the abuse because without it, we don’t get anywhere. It is taxing. It is demoralizing. It is corrupting. It has the power to absolutely destroy one’s wellness in every sense of the word.
But, as Kamuela Enos stated during the Q&A portion of the showcase, these films remind us that “self-advocacy is the core of mental wellness.” Tanya Smith-Johnson followed up with a point on self-care by saying that these films also remind us that “it is self care to have boundaries.” The films, while having slightly different plots and obviously different characters, had the same exact message and it is those points quoted above. To truly thrive means to put yourself first. To help others but only when you have given the love and assistance you deserve to yourself first. That wellness begins with remembering that your needs, desires, hopes, and dreams matter just as much as everyone else’s. That they too deserve support and a giant line drawn in the sand to keep anyone who would dare trample on them away. These films remind us that it’s ok to want to help others but never at the expense or detriment of our own health and mindset. We too deserve happiness, love, and healthy, abundant relations.
And what better way to end a season? To farewell summer and welcome in the new cycle? I can’t think of one. We’ve traversed many roads since starting the journey into beautiful, Reel Camp madness in early June. From environmental and reproductive justice all the way to LGBTQ+ issues, it’s fitting that we end with mental wellness. Talking, thinking, and dreaming about what we do when we need to take care and make space for just us in the midst of all that we work for and towards. How we continue to push for this self-care and love mentality both for ourselves and for society as a whole. As we close the chapter on this season and we take all the lessons we’ve gained with us, how have you learned to show up for yourself today? How will you show up for yourself tomorrow? When the next season comes around, what will you share with us about how you’ve carved out your own forms of self-advocacy, tenderness, and care? And how can we continue to show up to support you as you keep. on. doing. the. dang. thing?
Another season is coming around. We look forward to hearing all about it.
films
The Mental Wellness Reel Camp for Girls was organized by Hawai‘i Women in Filmmaking in collaboration with the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at UH Mānoa and made possible thanks to the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the NoVo Foundation and the Gerbode Foundation.