Five years after graduating from the School of Speech, Scott Parker had a big decision to make. With eight scripts already written, Parker could go to Los Angeles and try to make it in the movie industry, or he could stay in the Howard neighborhood of Chicago and use his film training to help area children.
Parker, Speech ’93, decided to go for a walk.
“I really felt like God spoke to me and said, ‘Stay and do this film thing at Starfish Learning Center,'” he said.
Parker listened.
Four years later, Parker runs Starfish Studios at 707 C Howard St., where every Thursday night he teaches about 30 youngsters the basics of filmmaking and helps them create their own movie.
Keeping His Kids in Line
It’s about 5:30 Thursday evening, and the students are pouring in. They go to Stephen F. Gale School, all ages six to 12. They are loud and full of energy, but in Parker’s company, they’re well behaved.
“Quiet on the set,” he calls out to the kids, and they follow his command, settling down for a prayer before dinner.
Parker’s program has always served two purposes, he said. On one hand, it’s an opportunity for Parker to use his training to teach children. But he also uses Starfish Studios to keep his students disciplined.
In the fall, Parker went to Gale and auditioned more than 200 students for his program. Making it into Starfish Studios is tough, and so are Parker’s standards.
Almost every school day, Parker talks with the teachers at Gale to make sure his students are doing their homework and behaving well in class. Those who behave well in school get candy. Those who don’t may end up out of the program.
“Part of the reason we do what we do is to give teachers some leverage with the kids,” Parker said. “Imagine a teacher trying to compete with movies and rock stars and rappers.”
Just last week, Parker said, three students were dismissed.
“I’m trying to hold them to a standard of high character,” Parker said.
The message has gotten through, several students said.
“I don’t want to get kicked out because it’s fun,” Clairresa Rogers, 11, said. “(Parker) said he doesn’t want people to think we’re bad kids in the movie.”
In the fall, Parker lectured the students on different genres of film. Now he and 10 volunteers have begun to film the students as they act out scenes from movies that they work on for class projects.
In May, Parker hopes to cast “Bobby Got Grounded,” a movie he wrote. In the movie, the main character, Bobby, must devise a scheme to get $20 after he hands some girls he likes the money his mother gave him for buying rat traps.
“It’s just a comedy, kind of like ‘The Sandlot,'” Parker said.
Parker hopes to have the movie ready for a community screening this summer. But to achieve that goal, he’ll need $50,000. A professional football player who he met while at NU has offered to match Parker dollar for dollar, up to $25,000, meaning Parker must raise $25,000 on his own.
If Parker does reach his goal, there will be a screening open to the public, with some of the proceeds benefitting Starfish Studios and the rest going to another charity, perhaps an orphanage in Uganda, Parker said.
“Part of what we’re trying to do is get these kids away from the idea that they’re poor,” he said.
Driven By Faith
It’s about 4:30 p.m., and Parker sits in his office with Dimitri Starks, 8, one of the students at Starfish Studios. Starks twirls around in his cushioned brown chair as he tells the plot of his favorite movie, “Dogma.” Parker types feverishly as Starks recounts tales of bad angels and a female God.
Then Starks looks up.
“Who’s that?” he asks, pointing to a depiction on the wall of a crucified man.
“That’s supposed to be Jesus,” Parker responds.
Parker’s faith and his work have been linked from the beginning. At NU, as a member of Campus Crusade for Christ, he found it difficult to get others to accept his religious view.
“Being at Northwestern, it sort of rocked my faith,” he said.
In 1993, Parker went to see author Jacob Holdt speak on campus. After the speech, he bought Holdt’s book, “American Pictures: A Personal Journey Through the American Underclass.” Although the book was mostly composed of pictures, each chapter began with sections of scripture about the poor.
“(Holdt’s) whole take was, we’re a Christian nation, but we don’t take care of the poor,” Parker said.
He became convinced that the only way to live a Christian life was to help the poor. He started meeting homeless people throughout Evanston and invited several of them to live with him. When he graduated, Parker moved to Howard Street and befriended many of the homeless people there. He became involved in a local church and helped out at an after-school program.
In his spare time, Parker was a substitute teacher. But his financial situation was always precarious.
“I barely paid the rent,” he said.
It was in his work as a substitute teacher that Parker found the inspiration for Starfish Studios.
“I knew this idea would work because I’d talk to (the students) about movies and actors,” Parker said. He found that once engaged in discussions about movies, students no longer presented the same discipline problems he usually faced.
Parker started acting and writing workshops Columbia College Chicago with students from all over the city. At first, he had big dreams.
“I was nuts,” Parker said. “I was like, we’re going to do a movie and two or three television shows all over the city.”
Parker’s acting workshops were well attended, but he couldn’t get students to come to his writing workshops. He also found it near impossible to achieve his original goals. He decided to move his program to Howard Street.
“I realized I would get more bang for my buck if I just stayed in my neighborhood,” he said.
Parker started auditioning students at Gale and made the movie his top priority.
Strutting Your Stuff
It’s almost 6:15 p.m., and dinner has ended a little late. Parker tells the students he wants to see their most creative walk as they cross Howard Street to go to the building where they will have class. It’s snowing, and it’s rush hour, but that doesn’t stop the students from strutting and shaking their way across the street, hoping to earn candy.
Later, the students break into groups, filming at separate locations. One group stays behind to rehearse. They practice the same scene more than 10 times. They don’t complain.
The students will stay in rehearsal until 8:30 p.m.
If Parker can raise $25,000 by May, there will be more late nights ahead and a film in the summer. He is looking for donors but has no concrete plans for how to raise the money.
With or without the movie, Starfish Studios remains a haven for Parker’s students.
“If you’re in rehearsal, you’re not going to be on the street,” he said. “I hope we put the gangs out of business.”
