This year, CoalCreative wanted to find a way to bring light to the incredible, creative people we have living right here in our region. The team at CoalCreative believes creativity is a broad term that cannot be easily confined within the walls of one simple definition. With that being said, the local start up company made it its resolution to highlight 52 creatives from the NEPA region every week for the entire year. With video taking over the online social world, it made sense to turn this into a video series right from the start.
It was decided early on this series would be an internship project for each set of CoalCreative interns throughout the year. Emily Bellanco, a current junior at Wilkes University who is earning her bachelor’s in integrative media, has been assigned the project lead of the series.
“This series is giving me the opportunity to learn more video production and editing in a professional setting,” she said. “It’s also teaching me how to interact with clients and meet real world deadlines.”
In addition to Bellanco, three other interns play a role in helping this creative series take shape. Evan Reakes, a senior at Luzerne County Community College studying web development, helps with outreach to individuals as well as online communities that would be interested in learning more about the creatives. Michael Hoskins, a senior mass communications major from King’s College, captures behind the scenes photos. Ryan Parpagene, a senior earning his marketing degree from Wilkes University, works on scripting and getting the word out through social platforms.
When being considered as a NEPA Creative, individuals are asked to explain how they bring creativity to the area, how long they have been doing it and why, and finally, what being creative means to them. Once chosen, the next step is to bring each creative into CoalCreative’s studio space to be filmed for a 60 second video that is shared every Wednesday.
“I think it’s making the community more aware of all of the positivity and creativity around us,” Bellanco said. “It’s easy to focus on the negative aspects of our area, but this series gives recognition to people having a positive impact on our region and making it a little more beautiful every day.”
Since the series inception, there have been seven NEPA Creatives highlighted. This week’s creative is Linda Rowe, a Wilkes-Barre native who brings creativity to the area through her view of the world expressed through photography.
“I want people to know our community and feel good about the choice to live, work and play here,” Rowe said. We have an amazing landscape that people would kill for. The good people that live here are fighting for its success and yet so many don’t know how to join in feeling good.”
The series plans to highlight all sorts of creatives throughout the year. There are no limits to who could be considered. Photographers, musicians, barbers, magicians, and improv artists are just a handful of the submissions received thus far.