santi wilkins, volunteer of the month

As Thanksgiving approaches, we want our volunteers to know we’re thankful they are a part of the High Five Access Media family. Community access media is a grassroots effort by locals to create a diverse tapestry of voices on local cable television and the internet.

In particular, we’d like to thank Santi Wilkins, a sophomore at Battle Mountain High School who got his start at High Five during our Summer Youth Camp. Santi and his team campers decided to tackle a video project focused on the transgender community in Eagle County.

Santi’s interest in video stems from early exposure to his grandfather’s photography and his mother’s camera. Later, a teacher showed him how to make a pinhole camera, an instructive demonstration of the play of light to expose an image. He continued the process, developing the pinhole negatives and burning the image to photo paper.

“I felt pride being able use your own mechanism and creativity to make photographs,” Santi said.

Santi demonstrates a great capacity for creativity, whether he is imagining fictional characters and worlds with his compatriots in the Dungeons and Dragons group at Battle Mountain, or working with classmate Levi Stepanek to bring his original drawn character “Protogen” to life using stop animation, a green screen and mixed media backgrounds.

“I like doing things most people can’t do in real life,” Santi said.

More recently, Santi helped High Five improve its production of Battle Mountain Huskies football coverage by adding and operating a second field-level camera. His camerawork helped tell an expanded story. He included images of the drumline, crowd, scoreboard and other angles he conceptualized and shared with viewers.

He also worked with pal Quinn Thuon to run cameras and a video switcher to record local band Turntable Revue during the Avon Live! Concert series.

Santi isn’t sure where all this creativity will lead; maybe art, music or hypnotherapy.

“I have a passion for discovery,” he said.

Stay tuned.