“Friends” producer Kevin Bright left Hollywood to teach at his alma mater, Emerson college, and in Boston found a new direction in life teaching blind students to create movies.
It was not something he had planned to do, but when Kevin Bright was in Boston, he heard the national anthem sung by the Perkins School for the Blind at a Celtics game. It changed his life. He saw that these students were not limited by their inability to see.
“In the sighted world we have all kinds of preconceived notions about the blind, and most of them are pretty limited,” Bright said. “These are people who may be without sight but certainly not without vision.”
He taught at the school for three years, and his students have loved his classes. It was a surprise that a big television producer would come to teach at their school, but they were excited.
“The producer of “Friends is coming to Perkins? Is he lost?” one of his students, Michelle, said with a laugh when she heard that they would be offered a class on film.
Another student, Laurie, was all in. “Give me the camera, show me how to use it, let me know when it is and where it is,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
Using the cameras is the easy part. Flip cameras make different sounds for on, off, and other modes, and they use their sense of sound to locate their targets. It’s not learning to shoot a movie that is hard but remembering the little things that sighted people don’t even necessarily think about too much, like turning the lights on, as one student learned during a night shoot. But these students don’t let something as small as being able to see hold them back.
Students have made dozens of films, many of which show off their talents or show life from their perspective. One student filmed a tour of the campus, and another filmed how blind students learn math, and some even have their own talk shows.
Michelle and Laurie hope to show with their films that they are approachable, that they are people with personalities and senses of humor too.
“I am humbled by all of these amazing students here,” said Bright, who is returning to Los Angeles but is leaving behind a film program that will continue being taught after he is gone. “They’re the teachers; I’m the student. They gave me life lessons I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else.”
Video: NBC
