Pictured is Tri-County EMC representative Kim Broun with GCEC teacher Dawson Roberts and some of his students after having received the Bright Ideas grant that will help fund a filmmaking project.

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — When Georgia College Early College teacher Dawson Roberts discovered budding filmmakers in his class, he sought funding to help feed their curiosity.

He was recently awarded a $780 grant through the Tri-County EMC Bright Ideas program.

“I have a couple of kids that the idea came from that have shown an interest in filmmaking,” the English teacher said. “We’re a small program and we don’t have a whole lot of resources in the first place. It’s something that I didn’t know a whole lot about, so we couldn’t offer that to them. So I wanted to write a grant to see if we could get just some really basic filmmaking equipment.”

Roberts is one of 27 teachers across Putnam, Jones and Baldwin counties that received funding for their innovative ideas in the classroom. The Early College teacher said he is looking into buying equipment such as a camera, tripod, microphone and lighting, but he already has his students on the filmmaking track.

While waiting on the equipment, Roberts’ students are researching a cultural epidemic on which they plan to do a short film.

“We’ve kind of started with my personal camera and a research project because they’ve got to do some research before they just get out there,” Roberts said. “I’ve got to teach them research anyway so I just filter it through this idea.”

Their research explores the cultural epidemic of zombies and why they think they zombies are gaining media attention via television, film and video games.

“They’ve researched that so now they’re in the second stage, which is the process of filmmaking,” said Roberts.

Roberts applied for the grant last fall, and he admitted that he thought his idea had been passed over.

“At this point I had imagined I didn’t get it and went ahead and purchased a camera for myself,” he said “They surprised me; I was in the library working with the kids and they came up to me. The kids were smiling, and I had no idea what was going on. There was a lady there with one of those big checks.”

The filmmaking idea was first brought forward by a group of about five students, but now the interest has grown and the English teacher said he has 35 to 40 students wanting to learn about film. Roberts added he has one specific goal in mind for the project if successful.

“One of my fellows right now — he’s a pretty skilled screenplay writer for a 10th-grader anyway. So I’m trying to work with him to make sure that before he graduates with us we submit at least one thing to the local short film festival, hopefully.”