Jadyn Marshall of Leap of Faith
Zell Miller III is a theater teacher (and the college and career coordinator) at Texas Empowerment Academy. He and the rest of the fine arts staff don’t usually make short films with the students in their classes; like most K-12 schools they’re much more used to putting on live theater productions attended by parents and community members. But in a school year defined by a global pandemic, that wasn’t really an option.
“Our fine arts director – his name is Willis Noel – he had a meeting with our amazing superintendent, Mr. David Nowlin. And Mr. Nowlin said to him, ‘so what is the fine arts department going to do, because you know we don’t stop at Texas Empowerment Academy. We keep going,’” says Miller, explaining how the academy came to produce the upcoming short film