School’s Storytelling TV Studio Hones English, Writing Skills

Sycamore Junior High School is miles and worlds away from Hollywood, but on Saturday it took little imagination to transform the Anaheim campus into a movie studio.

In the teachers’ lounge, 14-year-old Maria Anaya was directing her first film, “The Magic Frog,” about a girl who mistakenly believes she has put a spell on a classmate using a frog her mother bought from a fortuneteller.

A corner of the room had been transformed into a fortuneteller’s den, with candles burning on the coffee table and a large piece of cloth hanging on the wall for effect.

Maria was directing a scene in which mother and daughter visit the fortuneteller.

Action! “Oh, you’re in trouble,” Sandra Villarreal, an instructional aide, playing a convincing sorceress, said ominously.

“What?” said the startled mom -- English teacher Yolanda Mejia.

“You’re going to have seven years of bad luck,” Villarreal warned, holding a seven of spades. “But don’t worry, I can help you.”

The fortuneteller offered to sell her a $100 magic frog good for seven years of good luck.

“Do you have something cheaper?” the unlucky woman asked. “I have a $50 frog,” the fortuneteller said, “but it is good for only five years of good luck.”

The woman pondered momentarily and chose the $100 frog. That was the cue for eighth-grader Linda Vega, playing the daughter.

“Oh, my God, Mom!” said Linda, with the indignation of a 13-year-old. “I need new shoes, and you are buying a frog?”

Cut!

“The Magic Frog” and four other films by Sycamore students are the product of a new after-school program begun by history teacher Ricardo Garcia. He got the idea last year as a way to improve the writing and English skills of his students, many of whom are immigrants from Mexico.

With help from college friend Eli Reyna, a Santa Ana video producer and writer, Garcia received a federal grant for two digital cameras and 10 computers.

Garcia and Reyna helped the students with the principles of storytelling and filming techniques, but otherwise left them alone.

“It is a lot of hard work,” Garcia said Saturday. “But it is nice to see the kids’ faces light up when they learn something new.”

They were quick studies. Since February, the group of 20 students has been meeting three or more times a week, starting with brainstorming story lines, then in writing five scripts, and now filming.

“It was a team effort,” said Maria, whose brother Samuel served as cameraman. She conceived “The Magic Frog,” but others offered plot suggestions, she said.

Directing suits her, said the eighth-grader. She once considered modeling as a career, “but I like directing,” she said. “I like to tell [actors] what to do.”

The finished films will be shown at the school later this year. Among them will be “The Missing Dogs,” a story about two missing hot dogs and the dogged pursuit of the culprits by two “detective students.”

“It is a comedy for all ages,” said Ruben Ruiz, the movie’s 14-year-old writer and director, who aspires to be a veterinarian.

On Saturday, Ruben and cameraman Victor Sanchez, 14, were shooting a scene in one of Sycamore’s classrooms.

The actors -- Melissa Herrera, 13, who played one of the detectives; math teacher Carlos Hernandez, playing himself; and a couple of dozen extras -- patiently repeated their roles take after take as Ruben and Victor got all the angles they needed.

“It’s a wrap,” Ruben said. “Thank you, everybody.”