Perry was built after the Civil War as the first publicly funded school for African Americans. Now it's a community center with a learning center of 30 networked computers. The Perry School, which focuses on children aged 6 to 13, has a similar philosophy to the Morino Institute's venture philanthropy. Instead of specifically addressing issues such as teen pregnancy or drug abuse, the school teaches health, dance and other classes to help children improve their lives overall. Then, they gather together to choose one idiom that they will make a movie about, using a digital movie camera.
Berry asks who wants to be an actor, a camera operator, a director or a lighting technician.
They all take their places, laughing and joking and having much more fun than you'd expect to see in most schools. The kids decide to film the girls in the group walking into a room with their hands on their hips, then all sitting down on a row of chairs. The boys do the sound effects of clomping into the room. The film is only a minute or so long. Berry sets up a screen and they watch.