Know How

Currently in post-production, Know How is a narrative feature film I wrote and directed about the lives of five foster care youth in NYC. Every year, a non-profit called the Possibility Project, casts a group of foster care teenagers in a musical they write and perform in about their own difficult lives. They come together for one year to share their stories. They learn to create change for themselves, and their communities.

I was brought on in May 2010 to write and direct the adaptation of the stage play. I guided the teenagers through re-writing their play for the screen, and wrapped production on the picture in July 2011. It is slated for submission into major film festivals this fall. It’s a bit like “The Wire” meets “Glee,” but not really.

The process of adapting the play for film was at once challenging and elucidating. The show was built out of the lives of the cast, but to create some anonymity the cast pairs one person’s story with another. Conceptually they fuse together their emotional arcs as humans inhabiting the same space, and on top of that another cast member plays the part. When writing out the scenes the actor/cast member imbued his or her own personality onto the part, and what came out of the process was a level of emotional truth that I truly believe to be unique.

I rehearsed for many months with the cast, and worked with an amazing crew to prepare for what ended up being 34 intense shoot days over four months. The film involved more than 100 cast members in over 20 NYC locations.

It’s important to make the movie because of the gravity of the situation with foster care, and how under-served this subsection of our populace has been. Consider this: There are 513,000 children living in foster care in the United States. 50% will not complete high school, 60% will be convicted of a crime, 75% will receive public assistance, and only 6% will even graduate from a community college.

The goal is to get the finished film into the hands of as many foster care youths as we can, and empower them to get involved and make change in their own lives. Above and beyond that, we want to make a lasting impact on foster care youth by developing an action-oriented site to get others involved as well. Suffice to say I’m incredibly excited about it, and as far as I can tell it could be one of the first narrative films to be specifically made to spark a social movement, as documentary films many times do.

The trailer above is a fund raising piece I made for it.