Jerold Kress
Multimedia Coordinator
jkress@bresee.org
ext. 123

What I do:
My main job is to teach filmmaking and story-telling to middle and high school students in the community center’s CyberHood computer lab. One focus of the program Is to teach fundamental professional skills on video camcorders, lighting, audio recording and editing. This gives a young person a firm foundation if she or he decides to study film further in college or to pursue a job in the industry. Another focus is how to tell a story because if your film doesn’t tell a compelling story then no one is going to watch your piece. Finally, we teach how to use digital filmmaking as a tool for social change in our community; we do this both in after school workshops and in our annual film contest for social justice in which we award young people with digital video camcorders which they can use as a weapon for social change in their communities. I also outreach our program to other nonprofits in the area as well as at our local schools; currently I teach two film classes at Belmont High School.

Why I am here:
I spent over 20 years working for various Hollywood studios. My main paying job was to help their main stream movies tell bettter stories by working on the scripts before they went into production. Over the years I became disenchanted the Hollywood product; the films were telling the same old tired stories but now they were using digital technology to make it look better and produce it cheaper. I volunteered for a short time at a Hollywood youth shelter and could not help but notice how happy the employees were when they came to work. I questioned why I was so miserable in my job and decided to try working at a nonprofit. I volunteered to teach a filmmaking class at Bresee and they eventually hired me as a full time staff member. The experience has transformed my life, giving me a new mission and purpose, and I hope in my own way that I have transformed Bresee a bit as well.

What I enjoy about what I do:
I enjoy working with a variety of people every day at our community center, both the staff and the people who walk through our doors to seek our services. I enjoy helping people, from senior citizens who want to learn how to make a film to tutoring a middle school student in math. I enjoy the challenge of being flexible in adapting to almost anything that can come my way, because no day is ever the same at the Bresee Community Center.