I will give you an example of a story from local tv. Now, let me preface this by saying, i loved the people i worked with. They were some of the smartest, funniest people i have ever known. Mr. Lamb where . Mr. Raphael first in lynchburg, virginia and then in memphis, tennessee. One day, and i was a newscast director and directed a number of things including studio wrestling. You could have me on a totally different show. I was in the control room about 4 00. We had a 5 00 newscast getting ready for the news and we have to do a news breakin. A small plane crashing in memphis. There is nobody famous in it, nobody terribly important, no big deal but the small plane crash. Nobody else was killed, maybe two people on the plane. But we had to break and with it and i think we broke into op rah. At six 130 we got called up to the general Managers Office and he says to us, that breaking news that we had today on the small plane crash, we had a viewer call us and say, i was watching your show, but channel 13, we were channel five, channel 13 had it before you. The general manager said, this is never going to happen again. There i am sitting there and i thought to myself, what if you are in their right mind is tuning into tv shows wondering, i see the breaking news on 13 and i wonder when five is going to get this. It sounds kind of shady but he went on. ,his sort of gives you an idea this gives you an idea of the priorities in local notice. To tell you the rest of the story, the following week i had a good friend, he had been my boss for a while and was now with channel 13, a competitor. We were having dinner and he says to me, we played a great joke on you guys last week. One of our salespeople, your mother the breaking news of the plane crash . One of our salespeople called up your station and said, hey, how come channel 13 had it before channel five . That is why we got in trouble. You know, again, this is just reflective. It is sort of a metaphor for the craziness of local tv news and how, i guess, at some point i could see that the emperor had no clothes and i do not mean the general manager but local tv and i did not want to do that anymore. How did i get into teaching or why teaching . A couple things there. I went to duke university, graduated with a degree in english and psychology. For years, i would get the duke alumni magazine. If you can imagine if you know about duke, and im sure you do, in the back it is what all of the alumni are doing, Vice President , all of these is very high positions and important positions, the executives, etc. People making tons of money. Back to this one little blurb that says, someone so is teaching math at Durham High School and i looked at all of that stuff and i said, the only person there doing anything guy andportance is that he had the smallest entry. That was years before i went into teaching that that state in my head. I went into the classroom while i was still with channel five, newscast director doing oneman shows of the telltale heart by poe and i did one based on on the myself by walt whitman and se of what it was like in the classroom in the park for me that i like is performing. Mr. Lamb the reason we invited you to come here and sit for an hour and talk to us is because you teach at Jenks High School in jenks, oklahoma but anyone that has watched this network closely knows that we have a andg called student camp you are the biggest winner in the 12 year history. How much money have your students won . Mr. Raphael i think 41,500 total. Mr. Lamb you have spent a couple weeks with us here at the cspan network but from your perspective, what has student cam meant for your students . Mr. Raphael it is a very, very intense couple of months of work that they do. Them,ially the payoff for while there is obviously monetary payoff all the way up to our recently second grand prize winner of 5,000. There is a monetary payoff but it really enriches them in many, many ways including research, get some way more research skills. They have to go out and interview people and i have kids tell me all of the time, i never even talked to a stranger, get a loan interviewed one. Alone interviewed one. The communication skills is a huge thing. As i always emphasize, these are visual essays. It is just like a kid writing an essay for english class except for the are doing it instead of with a pen or a wordprocessing program, instead what they are doing is using a camera. Mr. Lamb how many years have you been at jenks . Mr. Raphael i have been at jenks for 13 years. Mr. Lamb how big of a school is it . Mr. Raphael i think it is about 3000. We have a separate Freshman Academy on the same campus and i think the total is about 3000. I am able to take freshman. Mr. Lamb where is jenks in oklahoma . Mr. Raphael it is right outside of tulsa. Mr. Lamb one of the things you did when you came here was hand me a little thumbnail no not a thumbnail mr. Raphael a flash drive. Mr. Lamb it has documentaries on it. These are not documentaries you entered. Of them. All four they are short. What would you say they are . Mr. Raphael they run 10 minutes tops. I think the shortest wanted give you is 7. 5 minutes. Mr. Lamb who did them . Mr. Raphael these were done by students of mine, students that have been with me for at least one year. By the time they made these pieces, it was their second year at least and for some of them, it could have been a third or even a fourth year. Mr. Lamb we are only going to show parts of them but people can see them on your website and watch all of them. Mr. Raphael that is right. Cinema. Com. Mr. Lamb this first one is called losing luke. Is he still with you . Mr. Raphael he is at the Santa Fe College of art studying music there. Mr. Lamb this will be enough for people to get a little bit of what is going on. When they tell me, you will either accept this or i will kill myself. Serious. Was he would stare at the wall for hours on end just because he was that the press. It was almost like he gave up on life already at seven years old. He played with mr. Potato head all of the time and his thing was, he would run around the house and only have the earrings on any always had her lips in his mouth. He loved to go and play around. He just loved life, you know . He loved being out in about and seeing the beautiful sites of the world but as he grew older, he changed. It was not until about the age of seven when i started seeing the darkness and that is when luke became very withdrawn and quit talking and just started shutting down. He did not want people seeing his arms over his legs. Or any part of him. He got to school and felt that he felt different and he started being singled out, that he was singled out as male and female. It started confusing him. At that point i thought, i better start preparing dad because i think lucas probably going to be gay. I just started looking at it that way. Lukes dad did not accept him at all. He was an alcoholic at the time and his wife, just one, their struggle because he was alcoholic. Then i turned around and hit him hard and said, you know what . Your child is not gay. He is transgendered. What take him 10 years to accept as a gay child, you know how to start all over again with the transgender and not knowing what a transgender was. He had no clue what it was. Outhen he comes to find that his son actually wants to be a girl, he lost it and he a big football loving son for his first son. He did not get that. Luke went on and changed his thatobe and then decided he wanted to change his name to katie. That is who i am today. Mr. Lamb how many people figure that out before they get there . Mr. Raphael im not sure anybody does. Let me tell you a little bit about that twist. This was produced specifically for a competition called young arts where if you win the top prize you get an all expense paid week in miami to study whenever art. In this case, filmmaking. In the filmmaking category, there are 700 kids that apply with a film and seven kids get chosen every year, so a 1 chance. We have entered three times previously and have won each time, the first school to ever have three winners. Michael was the fourth one trying to get that. The one thing they love is twists. Everybody loves a twist in a movie, so michael and i talked about it before he started shooting. How can you do a twist on this . I said, michael, how about you have katie talking about luke, the previous name, as if he was abusing her . Not physically but emotional. Having to feel like you are one gender when you are really another. He said, sure, i will do that. He goes out and he does the interview with her and he comes back. I said, how did he go . He said, i think it went well but sometimes she talked about herself as a third person and start she said me and i. I told him that would not work, that he could get a decent piece but it will not have that twist that would be so compelling. I told him, he could still enter red, would not when the top prize maybe go back and interview her. So he did. Mr. Lamb again, we are going to show another clip of this which is only one minute but it is an important other part of this. Lets watch. I missed her for two weeks. Two weeks she was gone. It was amazing to be able to finally see her as completely female she always imagined herself. Yes. It is amazing. I think my entire life i have really known that i have been male inside but i did not know how to express it. I first came out as a very masculine lesbian. Then i saw a really was male. You grow up knowing you may not be able to have a relationship based on the way you are and then i meet katie and we are like the exact opposite. And she is m2f. Mr. Lamb what has been the reaction from your students . Mr. Raphael my students love this piece when i show it to them. There are two things there. One, this is one of the more mature pieces that the kids can do, so usually wait until later in the year. These are from the more which are students. These are from the more mature students. We are also in a more conservative part of oklahoma and so i have to be aware of what i show the kids. She says at one point in this parents polled, their kids out of school p ulled their kids out of school because of this transgender student. This was in bixby high school. Mr. Lamb issa katie holmes. You said hill. Mr. Raphael yes. As far as i know, katie holmes is not transgender. Parents pulling kids out of school because there is this transgender student as if they would become transgender just being around her. Some extreme actions, but in any case, i am very aware of where. E are in the country sometimes i show it and sometimes i do not. Regardless, if it is one of the better pieces and mature pieces, i wait until later in the year because otherwise, they will see this new to go, i cannot do that sort of thing. I have to give up. They do not start out doing the pieces. To do good work, i have to teach them how to do it. Either that, or they try to emulate it and they do not pull it off right away. Mr. Lamb did you have any kickback on this from the locals . Mr. Raphael i have not. Disclosure, it was a jps cinemak on our website until i found out that brian lamb, cofounder of cspan wanted to run it on their show so i just opened the link. Mr. Lamb so you might. Mr. Raphael i might be looking for a job next week. I will give you a call. Mr. Lamb lets move onto another winner. It is called the glass child. Tell us the background. Mr. Raphael the way this came about was, again, daniel was to enteror something into young arts and we talked about the idea of twists and the emotional connection. He heard about this place called sib shop where siblings of people who have either developmental needs or physical needs go to this as a separate place for them to get support because as you see, if you watch the piece, you have watched it, but as a viewer watches this piece, you will see how tough it is on the siblings themselves. If the background. Daniel set up with the family to go out there and found them at sib shop. They did not show up. She was sick that day or something. I cannot remember what happened that he was persistent and contacted them again and asked could go to their house, second time, third time. Mr. Lamb everyone agreed, obviously, to do this. Mr. Raphael yes, absolutely. Mr. Lamb lets watch a minute of it. All of them . Yes. Me in my brother. Well, it is a tough spot for me and my brother. Life is a highway. I want to ride it all night long. You did it. I did it. I like my brother more than my friends because he is my brother and he is my family and i love him. Mr. Lamb how long ago was this done . Mr. Raphael oh, boy. 2012, i think so four years ago. I want to say one thing about this girl. In the process of making films like this, daniel goes out and choose the interview with the girl, and he comes back and i said, how do they go . He told me it did not go very well. She did not give me very good answers come along answers. Suchought it had potential. He is over there editing and i have a computer i edit projects at and i was for a close to him at that time. I look over there and i so this really nice closeups of the girl and how intense she is. On. As a headset i wanted to hear some of the soundbites. I started listening and i said, these are fantastic. You know what you have here . Onis an eightyearold going 80. She is having to be so much more which are because of the situation that her brother is in. Daniel was somewhat distressed about the piece because the answers were not bring along but i said, break them up. Just break them up into these little chunks because in the little chunks they are perfect, wonderful little soundbites. Mr. Lamb why would the parents agreed to do this . Mr. Raphael agreed to the interview . Mr. Lamb yes. Mr. Raphael i think as you hear in the piece, if you watch the whole piece, the mother at one point says, we have to feed him three feeding tube. Observation deck in new york at the Empire State Building and somebody said, why do not all kids get fed through their stomach . I think even the boy might have asked this question. I think one reason the parents good is to give people a general idea of not only the problems, the challenges, i should say, the challenges a boy like that goes through but also the challenges for the sister and for the family as a whole. This family is a family of great faith in you hear that, out in them when they talk. It is a really, really deep seed of faith not just through what they may have had before this that even from the experiences they go through. I think sharing the experience in giving hope to other people, i think that is the reason they agree. Mr. Lamb how old was he . Mr. Raphael i want to say three or four but i do not remember. Mr. Lamb if people saw this, we are going to show daniel in just a second. They can watch the whole documentary. Tell them again. Inema. Com. L on jpsc mr. Lamb here is daniel. He is talking. This is at the end. Mr. Raphael that is right. Onhave occasional additions a show behind the lakers in oklahoma and one of the things i do is i interviewed the students and piece together the interview answers. You will not see me in the interview, but i just include their answers. Mr. Lamb where is daniel today . Mr. Raphael he is at the university of oklahoma in his final year of undergrad training to be a physician. Mr. Lamb a physician . Lets listen. I was really informed about want to i wanted to shoot. Differentlydid about my piece is i did not try to do as much direct cinema as i could. It is showing what is happening as it is happening and said that having a voiceover and having somebody talk about it. This way, i could show the innocence of the children and i could show the reality in the story and of having someone talk about it or having a scripted line, having direct cinema helps the viewer really feel they are actually there and get the same feeling that i had as i was filming them. Mr. Raphael can i say one more thing about daniel . Who i consider a friend now. He is not only a great film maker but a great human being. Daniel was with me, starting with me as a junior. Senior year and what does this piece, wins at young arts, comes back from miami and i have this thing where he spoke to the class about miami. A good friend of his is in the class, Michael Witten and says, that you know that daniel almost did not take your class a second year . I said, daniel, is that true . He said it was. I asked why he did that and he said, nothing that i did was good. He said, you have criticism and criticism of all of my work. I said, dano, that was just to make your stuff better. He said, i know that now, but i did not know it at the time. It is funny because, and this happens a lot with my kids. It is created, it is a creative process, whether you are a creative writer or a creative film maker, a lot of the work you do, you can take the criticism personally and i never say to the kids, you are a terrible film maker. I will say, this is not working. And then we talk about why it is not working and then have to rework it. Mr. Lamb how many classes do you teach . Mr. Raphael i teach a total of five classes. Mr. Lamb a day . Mr. Raphael a day of about 55 minutes each. Four of those are still making classes and two of them are advanced. Two more for i also teach screenwriting. I just got my masters of fine dozen 1 in in two two dozen 13 from hollins university. How many students are there in each of the classes . Mr. Raphael i have Nine Computers plus the one i use and i put two kids per computer, so maximum of 18. I have had that before, but lately they can range, i would see an average class size, and average that i like actually, anywhere between 14 to 18. Mr. Lamb here is video of you in your facility with the computers and all of that. It is not very long, only a minute that he gives folks a chance to see what your environment is like. When i first enter the class, i was really freaked out by the equipment, the thought of operating a camera having me terrified. I have never used one before. I thought, i do not know if on the first day i will come in and everyone else is going to be technology savvy. It was not like that at all. Mr. Raphael really breaks it down and you get a lot of practice. Mr. Raphael do you think this would be a good place to shadow what the students enjoy and get out of the class . The class size is really helped me as you are so much more open to criticizing of the documentaries and getting criticized so it is not embarrassing to be criticized in front of five people. Mr. Raphael ok, general comments either way. Things that worked in things that did not work. Michael . I like the part where they sre panning across the guy back. I think they couldve done it a little bit better but i thought it was a good idea. Mr. Lamb that last film, Michael Clarke was the one that did the first documentary that we showed. What is your philosophy in the classroom . Mr. Raphael my philosophy . Mr. Lamb how do you approach these young folks . Mr. Raphael well, ok, when they start out with me, we start out i watching examples of previous work. I do not show them the best work goes again, they will not be able to make the best work that i show them examples of things i think they can do that is some of the best stuff. We talk about what works in here and what does not work. This is from both a technical standpoint from all of the years in tv but mostly from a storytelling standpoint, what really makes a story work and that is a tough thing to do. Out of is it if you go to the multiplex on their 14 movies showing. Two might be good. That is how tough it is. But, i am very intense with the kids. I am also, i developed Good Relationships with them. I think the important thing is to develop a Good Relationship based on them trusting you to be honest with, that they can trust me to be honest with them and vice versa, too. And they ultimately no when they are with me per second, third, fourth year that everything i am doing is in their best interest to make them better film makers. Mr. Lamb any of them make a documentary just with an iphone . Mr. Raphael not yet. Who was the 5,000 second grand prize winner, she did a few things on her digital layer who woney first prize in second prize with cspan a few years back, she used a go pro for some of her shots. Mr. Lamb what is a go pro . Mr. Raphael you often see it on mountain climbers, getting a point of view shot attaching it. She attached it to the front of her car to go paddle boarding basically. Mr. Lamb she won our grand prize this year in student cam. You have to make a five to seven minute document it. She is how old . She is 15 now. Raphael we are going to show a total of three minutes, but theres a lot of claymation. How did she do that . Mr. Rafael i did not teach her how to do that. She called me at one point he said, what is the easiest way to do this . I told her to possibility. You can film it and then top it up to make it look like its claymation so instead of having continuous movement, you chop it up. Or you can shoot it, do a friend, and then move it, to a friend, move it and that sort of thing. I think thats what she did. Mr. Lamb did you choose the topic on her own . Mr. Rafael we talked for months, for five weeks. She was the last person to come up with her subject. What she wanted to do originally was she did not feel that there should be government funding for said, if there was no government funding for the arts at all, i would not be here at the school . And you would not be in my class entering this competition. And she said she understood that. We talked more and more about it and finally she brought in the debt into be the general of government spending. Mr. Lamb lets watch a minute and a half and get your interpretation. Every year a budget is formed throwing out large sums of federal money to three main areas. The first of these is Discretionary Spending which received 1. 1 trillion. The second section is mandatory spending. Trillioneived 2. 45 dollars. Lastly, interest on the federal debt which received two and 29 trillion. 22 9 billion. This all totaled at a whopping 3. 8 trillion. In order to pay for these things cometh the government has to taken money somehow. This is how the but it works. You have the revenue and expenses. In other words, money taken and money put out. The case of the u. S. Government, revenues greeted with taxation. When the amount of money is taken through taxes does not equal the amount of money put out the spending, we have what is called a deficit. In order to make up for this, the government sells treasury bonds, essentially a loan from a third party. This applicant good deal until you realize that we actually have to pay these people back at some point. The falling can be a very solution. But it is the cause of a greater problem. The National Debt is the sum total of all past deficits in all the money to future generations, my generation, are going to have to pay back. Mr. Lamb how did she learned that . Mr. Rafael about the debt . Doing research on it. Im not sure exactly what her sources of research were. If you watch this piece in its entirety, she does all kinds of ways of being creative with the presentation of the information. One thing that i did starting this past year was to show them some episodes of a program that aired on pbs called how we got to now with a dynamic Stephen Johnson who is a historian who also happens to be really good on camera and he does some very Creative Things in presenting the information. I required my kids this year that they include these how we got to now moments in the piece and before they even started working on them come i turn to olivia and she is a very creative kid i turned to her, i think this is the person whos going to go crazy with this. Sure enough she did. She put a tremendous amount of work into this. All my kids but in a tremendous metaphor. Did a story about olivia when she finished it big she comes into class and the deadline is june or 20. January 20. I make my deadline the 18th in order for any problems with the upload. My deadline is the 18th. She comes in that day after uploading it and see his she is exhausted. But not looking good. Her and i said, olivia, are you ok . She says yes. She did not sleep much. I did not sleep at all. She had not slept at all. I said, i hate to hear that. You know what . The deadline is touching her 20th. Genuineary is not 20th. January 20. It february 4. But its actually doing the 20th. I just wanted to see her reaction. If there was more time, kids was still wait until the last couple of days. Mr. Lamb lets watch a little bit more of her. She is the big winner in our contest. We at 2800 entries. 2887. Fael mr. Lamb and they keep growing every year and is 100,000 in prizes. Lets watch olivia one more time. Growth, there is serious. Debt crisis has got to be solved. We have tremendous cutting to group. To do. The only way gets fixed is if there is growth. Wealthiest people and largest corporations have also got to play a role in deficit reduction. Hundreds of both of dollars is going to be saved just in terms of running government. As you can see, there no shortage of ideas. But if ideas are dime a dozen, why do we still have this problem. . Some claim there are no more cuts to make. I dont think the coverage is quite there. I see happening amounts of ways and Discretionary Spending away. Take the arts. The National Endowment for the arts receives over 109 of federal spending per year. Budget request for 2016 totaled at 149. 949 million. 140 9 million we dont have to spare. Lifen art kid and is my. But i do think this is one area where we can safely cut down on federal spending. Mr. Lamb they are allowed to give their views. One, wet particular asked if she had each sides. What you teach them . Do they have to be balanced . Mr. Rafael i dont think they have to be balanced. Them as is included in the cspan rules, you want to get the other side and i think its important to get the other side of the issue because then it demonstrates that the student has explored this indepth and hasnt just looked at their side. One particular student did a piece on reproductive rights and she was not sure where she fell on it when she started in the research and it was through the ended upthat she having her own personal beliefs about it. Mr. Lamb wheel back to 2008 on this one. We go back to 2008 on this one. 20082000 school nine. Leaving religion at the door. Winner. Ize where are they today . Mr. Rafael they have graduated from college and nick is still film ande work in Music Composition. I had lunch with him recently at a film festival. He is married and about to have his first chapter not sure where Scott Mitchell is what he is going into. Mr. Lamb lets watch one minute and 13 seconds of this documentary. Catholicare many politicians and voters who built leave the religion at the door. And that is not good. Not for the country. Im a Firm Believer that religion and politics dont mix very well. Every time it does, we get into trouble. For example as a christian i can express my view but imposing it on the country is not the thing to do. People in politics need to vote when it comes time for election. Many times they will pander to certain religious groups so that they will then come out and vote for them. But what is good and correct for one religious group is not necessarily good or great for another. Government has to deal with the nation as a whole. To support or paper one particular faith over another one provides an opportunity for discrimination and potential abuse of power. Mr. Lamb how do you get such good quality videos . Mr. Rafael i highly emphasize production values. This is a huge thing. Coming from tv, i had a great mentor in television, he is now working in the Video Department at George Washington university. I have not seen him in 30 years before i came here to d. C. To be with you folks and we got together for dinner and it was amazing. Himeat mentor in terms of and i in turn have learned a little bit more since then. And passed on all of this to the kids. Im not the kind of teacher who will look at something that is not very good and say that is nice and you did a nice job. I will say, what is not as work not working. Eventually every single one of my kids makes a better piece than they did in the beginning. Eventually the kid to do really well internalized all of the stuff so i no longer have to say to them, their own brain is saying these things to them. Thing about nick mr. Lamb tell us who he is. Mr. Rafael one of the coproducers of the film and then went to the Music Composition program. He got his masters working for film. When my wife and i went to dinner with him, he said that there were two people that he wanted to impress. I dont know if this is his entire life or for the time he was in high school and he said other wasad and the me. I had him for four years if he did sometimes impress me did end up impressing me. Nick is one of my favorite former students. Mr. Lamb where would you put the feeling of the work youre doing with 13 years as a teacher and compareh school that to your work in memphis . And a feeling you have at the end of the day. The one downside of what i do because im the film high school,nks im the only person doing it. While i have colleagues in the sense of other teachers, i dont have adult i talked to on a regular basis so that is the one thing i miss from television. Other than that, it is such a cliche, brian, but the emotional award of teacher teaching are extraordinary. Are able to do with a kid in the way you can touch a life and you can see in screenwriting, theres that thing called a character art. The character has to change in in the course of the twohour movie, and im seeing the character art. Mr. Lamb this was a first prize winner. Who is this person . Mr. Rafael extraordinary student and human being. She came to me as a 10th grader. First piece was not all that great. Rememberhe does not this but i swear for a good maybe even day she was resistant to my advice. A lot of kids are. They are kids. Then she bought into it. Once she bought into it, and started on her work she was making work that by the time she finished his stuff i cannot do. It was stuff i cannot do. The same way ts eliots wasteland would not have been had it not been for as her pound. That same kind of thing. That same court of thing sort of thing. She went on to be my third student to get a full scholarship to Ithaca College is school of communications raised largely on the work she did for my class. And board,tion, room 2500 for a new computer, two semesters overseas in a thousand dollars a semester in spending money. If the best scholarship out there if you are not a quarterback for football team. Mr. Lamb we will see a minute and a half of it. It is called dammit. Fixed the river. This is her family. They are involved in it. This is 2015. There is a little of the documentary. The first bill i will sign today is the Water Resources reform and develop the act. Alsit will put americans to work modernizing the Water Infrastructure and restoring some of our most vital ecosystems. Water resources the dominant act gives the engineers the authority to look up Flood Control for other things have been to do with the waterways. Im an advocate because i look and see the opportunities we have in tulsa that we are not doing. The current to turner of water levels is the dams. The corps of engineers must carefully consider how must they let out to insure People Safety and wellbeing. They must schedule the release as carefully to account for the wildlife of the area, prevent flooding and ensure optimal hydropower production. The release is often minimal and fails to fill up the stretch of the river. When the downstream portions of the river dont receive water, dams become visible. They were built to contain the water. It is becoming increasingly ineffective. In addition to that necessary repairs, but also community is proposing a series of low water dams dont promote more dependable water levels. The dominant Dams Development of dams is essential to getting people on the water and make better use of it. Mr. Lamb how often do they get turned down . How often do they get turned down . Mr. Rafael you know, your government. [laughter] it is a hit and miss thing. Ive seen maybe 5050. In this case is what happened, we had one some prices the Previous Year in cspans competition and we had a nice article about it. I get this email from a student my First Year Student i started in 2004 whom i had not heard from since then but he does a pretty good work and said, hey coach, my first are they called me coach for some reason. Anything except until making. He says, hey coach, i want to congratulate you on a great article and see if you remember me and i did. He said, if theres anything i can do for you, let me know. I do another would be and i saw his signature line and he was press secretary. I think there might be something he could do for us. I meet email him back and said next cspan season im a user convection connected to see if we can get the senator and that is how can about. Mr. Lamb what is the direction when they get turned down . Mr. Rafael i think kids generally sort of expect to be turned down by people they dont know so it is not as disappointing for them. The good kids go out and find something else. Mckinley interviewed 910 people for that piece if you watch the whole thing. The Family Connection which we dont see in that is that her parents both own a business paddling and if theres not enough water they cant do it. Mr. Lamb are the winners on the website . They mr. L im sorry, lamb are only on your website. We have them on the website. One more documentary in this one is 2011. All that remains. The background . Mr. Rafael she came to me in 10th grade and was with me for three years. S she made this towards the end of for second year. Extraordinary human being. Again, not just a great student, one of my favorite people on the face of the earth now. I consider her a good friend and she considers me to be a friend of hers as well. We entered the regional emmy awards and i decided we do not want a student certificate if we entered, we wanted to enter in the professional division it is a professional attached and i am a professional. On the executive producer paul the films. We entered and won. Short documentary historical or cultural. We beat out to denver tv stations and tied with the denver post. This is about a historically black town which i did not know. Im not from oklahoma originally. Subject. He found the mr. Lamb here is one minute and a half. During my childhood days, people everywhere come all around the country, all over this neighborhood, all the broken houses and homes no longer in use. Still live bodies. Town came out of necessity. Africanamericans were not treated fairly in mixed communities. Men, women, with their families headed west to carve out a space for them so. Themselves. Oklahoma has more black towns than any state. A gentleman from red river county, he served as a manager to establish the town. He sent out a massive advertisement asking for people to come and make this an allblack town. People came by the droves. I liken it to the black towns as being the ellis island of the west. It is where African Americans want to to carve out a piece of life for themselves. People who looked just like me were there to encourage me and motivate me and inspired me. We do not feel like we have to play basketball to get out of the village. We had what was real. Learnmb where did they framing . Mr. Rafael may. We do it constantly. Every time the kids do around the pieces, i show them on the 15 inch pies on screen, i show them on that and we talked about headroom, how is the technical stuff . What is working . We talk about what does not work and what does work. Speaking of which, an idea of what i do, my favorite part of the job, i have four kids entering that year and she did not become one of the miami people, and yet later one the emmy but you got second prize in the competition. Duringll be editing it the evenings and they will put extra work in. Im there for them when they are doing the extra work. It is the evening and therefore tos bouncing from computer computer giving advice. Kristol calls me and i look at her piece. It is not working. What do you think of this . It is not working. What do you think . It is not working. What you think is wrong and she says she has no idea. Im not sure either. We Start Talking about it to had longer hair and i longer hair, i was running my hand through a haircut he got what is wrong and finally, it was a nobrainer, i was on the connection, i said, why does this matter to anybody else . Why does it matter to somebody who is not there or oklahoma . That is what is missing. How will we get that . I talked to my wife and my wife said i know women in the library and nowshe is a library shes a supervisor, and any case, she says she knows a woman in the Library System who used to lead towards of historically black towns. The woman to talk to her . Sure. That is where that part came from that added so much to the peace and made it work. Mr. Lamb where did you meet your wife . Mr. Rafael i met her on an Online Dating site called people to people. Mr. Lamb i was in memphis and the time and she was in pittsburg, kansas. As fourel as much hours out. We would meet like halfway and eventually i propose to her noak oxford, mississippi. Proposer and she moved to i propose tohen her and then we moved to memphis and we came back to the tall site area pulse of tulsa area. Mr. Lamb another piece. Biggest challenge was how to figure what direction my story was going and grading the most honest piece as possible and interpreting the people that i spoke to and the towns atmosphere. Lying fore time not the town. When someone is put in front of a camera, it is almost like onre their optimism turns and the tread but the situation or the issues surrounding their most optimistic light regardless of the truth. Mr. Lamb at the end of the mr. Rafael at the end of the school year i have a debriefing with my students. What could i do differently . What would you have me do differently . Her last year with me, crystal firstdont be so mean year. I said, that is not happening. Mean, they mean dont be so intense. Dont ask us to work so much. This girl, i could see her work ethic when she was partnered with some of it and i could see what she was doing. Even though first year she may three sentences worth of stuff and i pulled her into my Office Second semester and i said, crystal, i want you to know im watching you and i think youre the next star of our program and you dont and she told me later that meant the world to me. Secondyear she could not shut up. I love that kid. How is it that you can get High School Kids to make documentaries that look like the bigtime stuff . Beautiful not to give too much advice, you are still competing out there. Be careful not to give to much advice, you are still competing out there. Mr. Rafael i want to thank you for acknowledging that it competes with the bigtime stuff. Obviously to win the professional emmy, some judges at some point felt that and the cspan judges also. It is like a perfect storm of things. Where myongealing, to work in television, but that was not my passion. My passion has always been stories, reading and literature. That is the single most important element to filmmaking. Ive always enjoyed films. When they hired me they wanted these shows that you would see on cable access where theres a couple of ksudents and we are the jen trojans just like usc. But a couple of kids sitting at a table saying welcome to trojan tv and i knew i did not what you do that. That is not something i would want to see. I got into this documentary filmmaking and fell into it. , the firsterything three years i had no idea what i was doing. Mr. Lamb last question again, the website, people can see it. Fcinema. Com. Jp we are not monetize at this point so you will not have to look at any commercials. Mr. Lamb right outside of oklahoma city. Tulsa. If you look at your name, you would think it is what is the origin of your name . Mr. Rafael it is from the italian part of switzerland and has been anglicized. When i make dinner reservations, it is rafael. Mr. Lamb thank you so much for joining us and letting us see some of your work. Their work. Mr. Rafael thank you, brian. For free transcripts or to program,omment on the go to our website www. Cspan. Org. And its also available as a free podcast. If you enjoyed this weeks q and a interview with clinton clifton rafael, here are other programs you might like. Work lastabout her days in vietnam. Heidi discusses her documentary on the deterioration of detroit michigan. And this