A Life of Pain

Arika Mittman, a TV writer on “South of Nowhere” and “Rachel’s Room,” contacted Create Now in January. She wanted to teach at-risk and high-risk youth about screenwriting, close to her home in Santa Monica.

We collaborated with Children’s Lifesaving Foundation to give 15 kids from ages 6 to 17 the chance to write their own short script. This nonprofit organization works with at-risk and shelter-housed homeless children and their families providing housing access, college preparation, scholarships and recreational opportunities. Based in Santa Monica, Children’s Lifesaving Foundation holds some of their programs at the Boys & Girls Club in Venice, which is where Arika taught her Screenwriting Workshop.

She taught the kids basic terminology and elements that are essential for a good script. Arika said, “I led them through the act structure of movies and they shouted out ideas. For the bigger things, I let them vote -- like on the character names and key components. So, they came up with the premise, main characters, and story. I wrote all the actual scenes and dialogue.”

When Arika found out that many of the kids were big fans of the movie “Twilight,” she got her friend Melissa Rosenberg, the screenwriter of that film, to autograph copies of the script for all the participants, which was very exciting for them. Arika also donated one to the Create Now library for use by all of the youth that we serve.

Arika said, “It was a great experience. It was very rewarding to see the kids ‘getting’ the concepts. I was impressed with how bright they were and with how much they got into the idea of creating their own story, particularly the older kids. We also watched clips from movies and talked about what we watched. They were really grasping concepts, such as character windows and themes; even the younger kids were following.”

For the last workshop, everyone took turns reading the final screenplay, which helped build literacy skills. The script turned out to be a terrific story that you can read here. All the participants received a copy. And as with all Create Now programs, we gave the kids a Pizza Party and each student got a gift bag that included a Certificate of Participation, pads and pens, plus other lasting souvenirs, as a reminder of the joy that reading and writing brings.

Maria D’Angelo, President of Children’s Lifesaving Foundation said, “This workshop was completely thought out, implemented and executed with a great deal of professionalism, true knowledge and love... Truly, a wonderful learning experience for the children, and one that will stay with them for years to come.”

Here’s what some of the kids had to say:

“Arika was a good teacher. I really liked it. We saw movie parts, talked about actors and characters, and made up our own storyline. It was awesome!”
- Ricardo, age 11

“I never had a class like this! It was neat. She made us feel so grown-up. I listened a lot.”
- Yael, age 7

“I thought Arika was great! She was so nice, and really listened to us. She was very creative, and we all felt we added to the story. I had tons of fun...”
- Daisy, age 15

“She was soooooo nice! I liked watching the movie scenes, and learning how to do it! Writing movies is good!”
- Rilene, age 6

“I really enjoyed learning about the process of writing movies. I was imagining it all in my mind.”
- Ernesto, age 14

We thank the Verizon Foundation, Office Depot Foundation, the Employees Community Fund of Boeing, CA and the Wells Fargo Foundation for making this project possible through their support of the Write Now literacy program, and to the Northrop Grumman Foundation and the Good News for Kids Foundation for their ongoing operating support. We're very grateful to all of our sponsors. We also appreciate the generosity of Arika Mittman for donating copies of the scripts and to Melissa Rosenberg for autographing them.