Unlike many people, Samantha Muilenburg doesn’t just hope for change. She makes it.
Muilenburg, who recently graduated from Shorecrest High School, is raking in awards for the documentary she directed, “A Generation of Consolidation.” The documentary takes a look at media consolidation and the opinions that youth have about the issue.
Muilenburg’s interest in film developed during her freshman year of high school, when she picked up an application for Reel Grrls, a Seattle program that encourages girls to both create and critique media.
“I got the application from some summer camp and I really was just procrastinating and didn’t want to write a school essay, so I applied,” Muilenburg said. Though she applied on a whim, she has been working with Reel Grrls for four years and has done numerous short videos for non-profit organizations in the area.
Muilenburg’s first video for Reel Grrls was picked up by King County Health Services to be used to help alcoholics and families of alcoholics.
“I think that kind of hooked me to film right away, when I saw it as a medium for change,” Muilenburg said.
Through Reel Grrls, Muilenburg learned about Reclaim the Media, a local non-profit group dedicated to changing media policy to reflect the public interest. A combination of both groups encouraged local girls to attend an Federal Communications Commission hearing in Seattle to testify about why cross-ownership laws should remain in place.
“That’s kind of where the whole media justice and being more aware of media justice started for me,” Muilenburg said.
From there, Muilenburg got to work.
Along with fellow amateur filmmaker Brooke Noel, Muilenburg conducted interviews with a variety of people, including members of the media.
“My favorite interviews I ended up doing were youth interviews,” Muilenburg said. “We really wanted to teach youth about these issues, and so I went to the English-as-a-second-language students at my school.”
Putting together the documentary was a huge undertaking. “(It took) a really long time, especially the editing. I don’t even want to know. Over a hundred hours. I don’t even want to know how long that took me. Now with making the Web site in the past year, it’s been a huge project. It’s an ongoing thing,” Muilenburg said.
It didn’t take long for her work to pay off. Reel Grrls submitted Muilenburg’s documentary to a number of film festivals and took care of any entry fees. Since then, “A Generation of Consolidation” has won several awards at film festivals, including two from the Seattle International Film Festival, a student Emmy from the northwest chapter of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, Best Documentary at the Shortie Awards and a variety of others.
Though Muilenburg does not have any more films planned for her immediate future, she plans to attend New York University and major in film.
“It feels really good to have something that I made and worked on and am proud of go to film festivals and really be something that other people are seeing as having value as a film,” Muilenburg said.
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