Creating Diversity in Films and TV Starts With Mentoring High School Students

ByPhyllis Zimbler Miller

It is getting to be Oscar season in Los Angeles. On a shuttle ride from an auto servicing location, I shared opinions of new movies with one of the other riders, clearly a Hollywood insider from his comments including which films had the best Oscar chances. As he was African-American, I was reminded once again of the lack of diversity in Hollywood as represented by the awareness campaign #OscarsSoWhite.

The diversity issues cover two important areas:

  1. More opportunities for diverse actors, writers, directors, producers, make-up artists, set designers, etc.
  2. More opportunities for portrayal of diverse stories on screen, which can foster understanding among different communities.

In the CBC News article “For a more diverse Oscars, Hollywood must go back to high school” by Kim Brunhuber posted February 26, 2017, then 17-year-old Kimberly Villaseñor talked about her mentoring experience at an LA inner-city high school.

Till now, she imagined that few successful directors of photography were regularly jolted awake by gunshots. But now she feels that her background isn’t a drawback, it’s an asset.

“Because then I have a connection, I have a story to tell,” Villaseñor says. “Everything in movies is fake, but when you see, these (mentors) are real people, you see these are actually jobs that I can do myself.”

The CBC news article also talks about Film2Future, a nonprofit program mentoring LA inner-city high school students interested in the entertainment industry and founded by Rachel Miller (full disclosure: she’s my older daughter). Film2Future has now run two summer programs and is working on funding for future programs.

If you want to help inner-city high school students have a possible future in the entertainment industry, consider donating to Film2Future.

Click here to learn more about the Film2Future.com program.

Click here to read the entire CBC article about mentoring inner-city high school students.

© 2017 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller