HOISINGTON — Three Hoisington School District students recently used school acquired skills in a real life film for Ellsworth Correctional Facility. The video will be submitted for a marketing grant, which if the facility receives it, will be used to market the bicycle refurbishing program and the upgrades to the Spiritual Life Center.
HHS senior Trent Schremmer, junior Brennan Knapp and senior Desmond Noah have all had experience in video production at the school. The class films athletic events, school board meetings, concerts and other requested events.
Casey Strong, Ellsworth Correctional Facility program facilitator, had called a couple of schools to find a video production team and Hoisington was recommended as having a great one.
The video featured an actor portraying the process one goes through as they violate laws and become an inmate at Ellsworth.
The students left after school on Oct. 15 to shoot the video. They took shots inside and outside the prison and using two cameras, filmed a high speed chase. The remainder was filmed with one camera.
Inside the walls of the prison, the video showed the institutional meals, the shackles and the despair worn by inmates.
The next morning, along with the assistance of two ECF workers, the students edited the four hours of film down to less than four minutes. Music and voiceovers were added.
The video was filmed, edited and submitted in less than 24 hours.
Strong was pleased with the finished product. ‘It’s phenomenal,” and the students and staff were very professional, he said. “They have a great program at that school.”
Video production teacher Deanna Spears said, “It was a very student driven project. They pretty much did it all themselves.
“I was very happy,” with the results, she said. “The guys that worked at the prison were very impressed.”
Each of the boys has taken video production from over one to three years. Their career plans include automotive, physical therapy or unknown.
Correctional Facility Programs
Fifteen hundred bikes per year are refurbished at the prison, and the bikes are donated to needy families across Kansas and the nation, according to Strong. Inmates become certified bicycle technicians. The facility needs parts, particularly new tires and tubes.
Unused bikes can be taken to Ellsworth or dropped off at the Barton County Landfill. The correctional facility also takes monetary donations for the program.
The Spiritual Life Center upgrades would include programs such as mentoring, counseling, and providing for the mental and spiritual health of the inmates to “help start rehabilitating these inmates into productive members of society,” Strong said.
To make a donation to ECF or for more information, call the prison at 785-472-6249.