John Burroughs High student hones skills in digital media through leadership conference
Enclosed in an envelope sealed with a gold stamp was a thick card notifying Xander Taylor that he was nominated by John Burroughs High School to join a leadership conference in New York.
“It was almost like a Willy Wonka golden ticket. I was dumbfounded,” said Xander, 16, during a phone interview.
The Burroughs junior canceled plans to attend San Diego’s Comic-Con and instead joined students in New York City for Envision’s National Youth Leadership Forum for Digital Media, Film & Journalism, held July 18 through 27.
The conference gives students hands-on experience in writing, digital and broadcast journalism, film editing and video broadcast.
During the trip, Xander collaborated with peers to create a digital publication highlighting New York at Manhattan College and helped execute an original short at the New York Film Academy. The finished projects were presented to a panel of judges for critique.
Participants interviewed subjects, wrote scripts, edited video and learned how to direct.
Though he was already familiar with digital-media tools because he took part in the advanced digital-media program at Burroughs High, Xander said he knew he needed to work on his script-writing skills, so he enjoyed the writing workshops the most.
An instructor taught students the importance of adding depth and conflict to characters early on in a script, without having to depend on a “giant fight scene with a monster,” he said.
“That lesson opened me up to new ways in writing characters,” Xander said, adding that his dramatic scripts usually lack “that extra dimension.”
In addition to the workshops and projects, Xander said he took advantage of his first visit to New York City. He visited Times Square and Ellis Island and also saw the musicals “Groundhog Day” and “The Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway.
“I had been planning to go to Comic-Con for the third time, but this was [a] once-in-a-lifetime experience to see everything in New York in one tight-knit package,” he said.
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