Our original purpose in our 36-week Media Training Program was to give what we considered a broad overview of the media production industry. Over time, we realized that though the 36 weeks were a helpful introduction to this industry, our graduates still need more. More meaning advanced level application for the skills they had now developed but unfortunately, in our industry, non-traditional students, which many of our participants would identify as rarely have access or the ability to pursue these “On the Job” opportunities that many others seeking these roles do. Meaning unpaid PA (Production Assistant Jobs, Interning, etc.)

As we looked back over the post-program evaluations, this became even more evident as more than 50% of our participants looked for advanced level training & development opportunities, and we're looking to provide them.

Unfortunately, our capacity as a young nonprofit wouldn’t allow us to take them to that next level of advanced training while also running our 36-week program. So, though we had almost 30 trained filmmakers & creators, we did not have the ability to support them holistically as they not only entered the industry but for many some were becoming first-time directors, producers, & cinematographers. We did our best to mentor graduates as new exciting projects, opportunities, and jobs come their way, but we were still doing this all while our main focus was on the next round of 10 participants who would be entering our next cohort. This left some feeling lost and others not doing what they had initially set out to do when joining our program, which was to create! This led to the development of the CREW program.