Something to Shout About : Student-Made Video Discouraging Dropouts Wins Contest, and It’s a Rap

Kids were jumping. Dialogue was flying. Images were flashing. Excitement was pulsating.

A scene from MTV?

Nope. Those in the animated schoolyard crowd at the edge of downtown Los Angeles were merely explaining how 50 youngsters teamed to win a shoe store chain’s music video contest last week.

The 32nd Street USC Magnet School’s three-minute video beat 26 other entries produced by students at Los Angeles-area junior high schools. The fast-paced tape will be shown at schools nationwide next year as part of a don’t-be-a-dropout campaign.

“It started when a flyer came in and said there’s this contest,” began teacher Steve Early.

“A flyer my foot! The principal came in and said, ‘Here’s a contest you can win!’ ” interjected Principal Greta Pruitt.

“By that time we were already involved. I’d put it to the eighth- and ninth-graders,” continued Early.

“That’s where I came in,” interrupted lyricist Demetrion Carson, 14. “Me and Rile sat down and wrote it right there. It took us about five or 10 minutes to write the words to the rap.”

“It took longer to come up with the background. It took a week,” piped up co-writer Rile Tippe, also 14.

“Are you kidding? The background took months to paint,” countered teacher Early again.

Details of how a campus mural became the backdrop for young musicians and dancers tumbled out nonstop after that.

Muralists Linda Garia, 15, and Alex Gershenson, 12, and 13-year-olds Geremain Mares, Thomas Mountain and Sean Ault breathlessly explained their role, and how a shiny new black car parked downwind from the mural one day got accidentally spattered with aqua paint.

Dancers Mariella Mendoza, 14, and Donnie McNeal, 12, jumped in to tell of how their footwork brought life to the video. It was easy, offered Janet Dacal, 14: “We watch MTV. We have school dances.”

But 15-year-old camera operators Jose Castillo, Hector Penagos and Marcell James said the filming part of the project was tougher. “I had to do some scenes over at least 10 times because the camera was shaking ,” said Marcell.

And the soundtrack was a challenge, interjected sound technicians Jose Marroquin, 15, and Mike Lashever, 14. Outdoor scenes had to be dubbed inside. And clanging school bells often messed up everything.

The finished video was spliced on simple classroom VCRs, spoke up editor Jose Garcia, 14. “It was hard to match up words and mouths,” he acknowledged.

The kids’ finished tape turned out to be just as frenetic as the kids’ explanation. It contains quick-cut scenes of students painting the schoolyard mural to the staccato beat of a drum played by 14-year-old Raymond Williams.

The dancing scenes are intercut with views of singers Gerardo Rincon and Crystal Davis, both 15, and Demetrion Carson. They perform the rap rhymes that extol pupils to stay in school to avoid becoming thieves, gangsters or street people.

A panel of New York judges for the Foot Locker chain and K-Swiss shoes picked the winning video from local entries, which included heavy-metal rock music and reggae beat backgrounds.

As winners, 32nd Street will receive a professionally re-created and polished version of its video. Each of the school’s 900 elementary and junior high students will also receive a free pair of $50 sneakers.

Professional rock video camera crew members Scott Reynolds, Mark Walton and John Scarpaci said the original student singers and dancers will perform in their broadcast-quality version. It will premiere April 22 on a 30-foot TV screen before the entire student body.

“And we’re using a lot of their footage, too. Theirs was a lot more professional-looking than we thought it would be,” said Reynolds. “They had good ideas. Good editing. Good camera work.”

Good going.