Editor’s note: This article won second place (Division C) in the Arts/Entertainment Reporting category of the Maryland, Delaware, and D.C. Press Association’s 2024 Contest. Read our other award-winning pieces here.
It’s not the movie “Fame” — it’s better because it’s real life.
“Madison & Cathedral” is a docuseries entirely written and produced by the students at Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA). The series, projected to be six episodes, covers a year in the life of the school and its students. The largest student-led professional development project the school has ever undertaken, one episode pays tribute to Tupac Shakur, and in another a student interviews alum Jada Pinkett Smith (’89).
The ambitious project began in the summer of 2023. Students have been working on it throughout the school year. Slated for completion in fall 2024, it will be submitted to various film festivals.
The idea for the series crystalized one evening when Mark and Patricia Joseph, BSA founders and longtime financial supporters of the school, were out to dinner with friends.
“We were talking about it, and said something like, ‘We want to do something like the film “Fame.”’ And they said, disparagingly, ‘Oh, that’ll NEVER happen,’” Patricia Joseph told Fishbowl.
Challenge accepted.
The Charles C. Baum Film and Visual Storytelling Department was still relatively young, having just begun in 2017 — something with which the Josephs were instrumental. Mark Joseph noticed some unused space at the school, and he suggested filling it with a film program. The Josephs provided the funding to start the program, and Beatriz Bufrahi and Tom Ventimiglia (film program department head and assistant department head, respectively) led the first cohort of 15 students that year.
They added 15 students to the program each year, and then COVID-19 hit.
“We did everything online. And then we came back 2021 and just started for the first time that we had all four grades in the building,” Bufrahi said. “And that’s around the time Mark, I think, when you already had that idea [for the series.]”
Ventimiglia explained that in 2021 the original idea was to pitch a film about BSA, but that at the time there were more distribution models and opportunities for episodic content. They chose an episodic structure and it took a year for students to map out production and content.
“One of the mandates that Mark had about the project, which I think was the brilliant part of this project, is that this was going to be 100% student,” Ventimiglia said. “Well, what is it going to be about? It’s talking about their own experiences, that they’re the middle of having…. That was challenging for them to contextualize it. But slowly but surely, over the course of that year, many conversations, a lot of writing, a lot of snacks… they came to the piece where, ‘Okay, well, now we know what we want to do.’”
The second mandate was that the project would be at the highest professional level possible because they were aiming for national distribution. This was all in addition to the students’ and teachers’ regular workload.
Some local BSA alum in the film industry are pitching in on the project to help teach and supervise the students, because Bufrahi and Ventimiglia needed some outside help. One alum, Gaia Bethel-Birch (’15), even delayed her plans to move away for a year because she is so passionate about and invested in this project.
Sophomores, juniors, and seniors have all produced segments for the series, with 47 students working on the series in all. Normally freshman and sophomores have their film classes in the morning, while juniors and seniors have them in the afternoon. Because of this project, however, they got special permission to work together.
“This is like the first time ever that we have more cross-grade collaboration within the film department and it has been so, so beautiful, because these students mentor each other and they help each other out,” Bufrahi said. “So, who has more knowledge with the equipment, they’re mentoring a sophomore on how to use the audio equipment.”
“They also lift each other up,” Bufrahi continued. “So, if somebody has a bad day, like they didn’t get the footage they want. They’re just so gentle to each other. Like, ‘Okay, don’t worry about it. Just do it again. Let’s just go out again.’ And then when they come back and they know they have footage, oh my god, the giddiness of it all. It is so, so beautiful.”
Pulling Jada Pinkett Smith into the project happened early on. Ventimiglia said she was in Baltimore promoting her book in October, when the students had just started working on the project, and they wanted to get her in the show. Repeated requests for interviews with Pinkett Smith were turned down, but Ventimiglia describes the kids’ refusal to take no for an answer.
The students wrote and made a pitch deck they sent to Pinkett Smith’s people and they were given a 20-minute interview. The students spent two weeks preparing the lighting, camera work, and interview process.
“Toni Wells, a junior, did the interview. She had never interviewed anyone before. I connected her up with [WBAL-TV news anchor] Jason Newton for a tutorial on how to interview and she did a beautiful job,” Ventimiglia said.
In Ventimiglia’s 17 years at BSA, project-based learning is nothing new. In all that time, and his 25 total years of teaching, however, he has never seen as ambitious and professional a project as this in terms of connecting the students to the world of the work. He called it the future of education.
“I’ve never seen a project this intense, and this transformative,” Ventimiglia said. “It’s actually kind of a miracle…. There’s so many creative people with so many different aspects…. The kids have big opinions.”
Mark Joseph described the moment when he knew the project was going to be a success.
“We’ve been keeping in touch, [and] when I heard that the kids wanted to film the janitor, I thought, ‘That really is starting to work,’” Joseph said. “I thought that was just a great symbol.”
Patricia Joseph added, “The cafeteria workers. I mean, really fascinating, the cafeteria workers know all these kids. ‘How is just such and such project coming along?’ and ‘I think you’re doing great,’ et cetera. And the kids really appreciate this. You get a great insight, I think, into the kindness of these students. You know, they’re just really good people.”
Every step of the way, the Josephs have been there with open hearts and an open checkbook. They funded all the equipment needed, all the experts needed for workshops to train students on how to use it, and even the after-school snacks. They’re the largest non-governmental contributors to the BSA because they love it so much.
“Because we think that Tom and Bea and the rest of them, the faculty and the people working there are doing such a terrific job, and it’s for city kids. The city kids,” Mark Joseph said.
“The credit for this school goes to the teachers,” Patricia Joseph said. “I mean, they are just phenomenal. And if it weren’t for them, it would not have been nearly as successful as it has been.”
The first trailer for “Madison & Cathedral” will debut at BSA’s annual Expressions celebration, Expressions ‘24: The Cornerstone, on March 7, 9, and 10 — which celebrates 100 years of the historic school building and its role as a transformative space for youth in Baltimore City.
