🎬 One-Day Workshop: Filmmaking with Smartphones

Join an inspiring, hands-on workshop led by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Dr. Zeljko Mirkovic — an award-winning documentary director and producer with 139 international awards and two Oscar-qualified documentaries.

Currently a professor at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Mirkovic brings decades of global filmmaking experience into an engaging, practical learning environment designed for creators of all levels.

📱 What You’ll Learn

Discover how to turn your smartphone into a powerful filmmaking tool:

• Crafting compelling short film stories

• Visual storytelling techniques using minimal equipment

• Shooting high-quality video on smartphones

• Directing, framing, and lighting fundamentals

• Editing techniques for impactful short films

Special Theme: 250 Years of U.S. Independence

Participants will create short films inspired by the upcoming 250th anniversary of American independence, exploring themes of history, identity, freedom, and future perspectives through a modern creative lens.

🎥 Why Attend?

• Learn directly from a globally recognized filmmaker

• Gain practical, hands-on experience in just one day

• Build your own short film from concept to completion

• No prior filmmaking experience required

• Perfect for students, educators, content creators, and storytellers

📍 Workshop Highlights

• Interactive lectures and demonstrations

• Real-time filming exercises

• Personalized feedback from Dr. Mirkovic

• Networking with fellow creatives

Unleash your creativity. Tell powerful stories. All with the device in your pocket.

Spots are limited — reserve yours today!

Sponsored by West Hartford Community Interactive - Our Story

Founded in 1979, West Hartford Community Interactive is a nationally recognized, nonprofit media center that encourages citizen participation in community life by providing an open forum for free speech, community dialogue, cultural exchange, and artistic expression. It’s a place where people come together to connect, create, and share.

WHCi is home to three community cable channels serving the Town of West Hartford, a dynamic media-rich website, and an award-winning grassroots citizen journalism project called “Be The Media.” You can watch our programming on YouTube on the channel @whci.

For The Community, By The Community

Local Public, Educational, and Governmental Media (PEG) play a crucial role in informing, educating, and engaging communities. PEG media serve as essential platforms for transparency, civic engagement, cultural expression, and education.

Community media centers and the people who work and volunteer in them are often creators of local information tailored to the needs of their communities—town government at work, high school sports, educational, cultural, and community programming.

In those circumstances in which WHCi records (rather than creates), it is generally where nobody else is likely to do so, with the result that there will be no record of the information.

Our Town and Our Community Supports WHCi

71% of WHCi's annual budget comes from community donations and local grants. PEG funding from traditional cable companies like Comcast and Frontier continues to drop significantly—WHCi, while down annually by over $100k since 2008, is grateful to the West Hartford community for supporting us and keeping this special space for local television alive and on YouTube @whci.

Cable companies use the public right of way to make billions—their only obligation for that use is to provide channels and support to local communities. That's how they were able to evolve to have channels like CT's own ESPN without local content.

We are asking state legislators to realign our funding and modernize existing state laws to allow us to continue to evolve in the current media ecosystem—free of commercial pressures and societal pressures—to remain truly independent.

Filmmaking with Smartphones Workshop