by Ewen Wright, Factory Assistant

Since joining the NextGen department at BAVC in late March, I’ve had an overwhelming number of positive experiences -- I think that should be an expectation and standard of working with youth and youth media.  What I didn’t anticipate however, was the amount of inspiration and the level of talent I would encounter in my co-workers.  That mildly insulting old adage of “those who can’t do, teach” is completely debunked by the group of youth educators that occupy our Oakland office everyday.

My boss and Factory Manager, Jason Jakaitis, has been touring his short documentary Mothersbane all over the country for the past year.It’s already screened in over 20 film festivals (and counting), and taken home a handful major awards including Best Short Documentary at South by Southwest.  Chris Runde, the manager of BUMP Records, finds time to progress his work as a professional engineer and musician while continuing to develop the music programming for BUMP, Digital Pathways, and serve as an instructor for both underserved youth and Bay Area teachers on behalf of BAVC.Ian Davis, the BUMP Instructor who also works in our Digital Pathways program, is constantly producing new work split between his two major passions – music and photography.In fact, he loves them both so much that in August he sat down at his computer and started crafting an album of instrumental beats inspired by his love of photography.He then went out and produced a photographic series to accompany the album, and just a month later he was distributing the entire Cameras and Music project online – for free.

But, for the way he puts himself out there time and time again, I’d have to give our shiniest star award to BUMP Artist Mentor, Davin A. Thompson – better known as Do D.A.T.  A leader in the Bay Area hip-hop community, it’s no wonder he keeps a skinny figure the way he hustles from show to show, album to album, and energizes the students of BUMP.  The most impressive part is that in the midst of the madness that makes up his schedule of events, he is producing some of the most high quality work on the scene.  Earlier this month I jumped at the opportunity to shoot a music video for a track off of his upcoming project, Golden Age (due out in early 2012).

On set for the production of the music video for 'Martin and Seku,' a track off of Do D.A.T.'s upcoming album, 'Golden Age.'  Wouldn't you know it: Ian Davis took the photo and Jason Jakaitis acted as an Executive Producer on the project

I can’t tell you how much I believe in what he is doing – what all of these guys are doing – and what an honor it is to come to BAVC everyday and share in their passion for this work and passing it on to the next generation.  Luckily, you can get a glimpse of it for yourself in this video created for Know This! about Do D.A.T.