In Production President Kristin Quick said, “I think the best part about working with the community is because we are all still students at community college, we are still developing our skills, and instead of trying to go out and find work when we are not fully developed yet, we can do it for free for community members that need it.”

The film club, In Production, is working closely with the film portion of the non-profit organization Southern California Crossroads to bring awareness to low-income communities that are underrepresented.

According to the website, “We focus on youth and community development by providing various program services including: Mentoring, Life Skills, Health & Wellness, Vocational Training, Employment Development, Trauma Victim Services, Arts & Film Programs and Case Management.”

SCC is located in Lynwood, California, where Quick says In Production has four volunteers working with “at-risk-youth and people that are in gangs” to provide a means to a better future. The film portion began in 2007, where, according to The LA Times, “The film program, in partnership with the New York-based Tribeca Film Institute and St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, allows students to confront social issues in their communities and their lives.”

Quick mentions she works with SCC to teach at a high school, and aims at creating public service announcements for the people that can’t volunteer at Crossroads and will continue to make them during the summer and into 2018.

In Production also works with other companies around Cerritos College to make promotional videos or commercials.

Six club members, including Vice President Ryan de Hoop and Secretary/ Treasurer Tallal Dahar recently worked on a promotional video for an Airbnb owner in Crestline, California during spring break weekend. They worked for 18 hours the first day and 12 hours the second day to get what they needed.

de Hoop said, “The importance for working for a non-profit and organizations such as that is important to establish community within a community […] With our In Production Club, we can provide our services and make promotions for non-profits that maybe need something [like] an outlet [or] medium to promote their [content].”

Quick emphasized the importance of teamwork among the six members and a great learning experience because they know how to work better, saying they were, “all on the same boat” and kept pushing to complete the project, and no one lagged behind. She hopes the club can have more opportunities like that because it was fun and it was a good learning experience with helping and teamwork.

Dahar said,“This whole film program and everything is teamwork, and everyone’s involvement is really important.”

The club will have a rough cut for the client and another for Cerritos College Foundation. Film professor Steven Hirohama told the Foundation about the project, which created an interest in funding both compensation and the finished project for the club.

Quick mentions The Jobs Program, created by Hirohama for the film program where he finds projects for the students to do. She says, “We do it for free for the community, but [for] The Jobs Program, we all submit resumes and it is competitive, and we get paid through […] a scholarship which is great for us because we get to do the work and we don’t charge the community.”

Quick, Dahar and de Hoop mutually agreed that their professor Hirohama has pushed his students by providing as many opportunities as he is able to and they feel grateful and indebted to him for his passion and dedication to the film program and his students.

The club members are working on having a film festival with student projects to raise enough money to take some of the members to a film convention in Las Vegas.

There is currently no date set yet, but after the members fill out ASCC paperwork and wait for approval and clearance from the new Fine Arts building, they will start promoting the event.

Quick and de Hoop also mentioned a project the film program is working on.

“We do have something going on for the whole Fine Arts Department. In the class that we are in. We are in a combined class of Cinematography and Music Video so everyone is paired up with a Cinematography student and a Music Video student, and we are each going to a head of each department for the Fine Arts [division] and we are going to be doing promotional videos for that department,” Quick said.

She says they will do it for all art departments on campus and it will be a big project that will be completed by the end of the semester.

“I think it is building working relationships as well as building our own skills because we’re not professionals yet and so I think it’s a good way to kind of help ourselves and the community,” Quick finished.