One day, I’ve entered the classroom and asked the students whether they would like to make a short film. There were more ‘happy yeses’ than there were students. They immediately started shouting at each other exchanging ideas, multiple students were pulling all my extremities trying to grab my attention, and they spontaneously started forming groups. It took me 5 minutes to calm their excitement.
They formed two groups. The first group came up with a comedy horror which subverts all the classical horror movie tropes, for example the main characters will not decide to split up for no reason. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it past the screenwriting phase. But, you can read the script and read the interview with the students on this page.
The second group came up with a short comedy/action sketch. It humorously criticizes the new changes to break time. The new headmaster shortened the break time and now the students barely manage to go to the store, come back, and eat their snack before the new lecture starts. But enough explaining, more showing. Watch it now!
The students had a lot of fun making the film. But they’ve also learned a lot. They’ve learned about the screenwriting process and how hard and time consuming movie production is. They’ve learned camerawork, lighting, sound production, directing, video editing and post production. Filmmaking really is an all-encompassing activity.
But let’s hear it from the students. Let’s see how did they like my filmmaking workshop idea. Below is the interview with first group.
Interview
Six months after we finished filming the last scene, I’ve contacted Sebastian (the main actor) and Vlado (the student who shot behind the scenes) if they’d be willing to do a video interview. They agreed!
In the first 2 minutes of the video you can see their live first time reaction to the short film, and after that there comes their interview. Enjoy!
(TIP: Press the CC button on the bottom of the video if the subtitles don’t load by themselves)