WESTMINSTER — A dozen 11th and 12th graders at the Compass School have spent the past six weeks studying films, writing screenplays, and producing their own short films.
This week, they put the final touches on their films in preparation for the ninth annual Compass Student Film Festival on Thursday, April 11, at 7 p.m. - a culminating event for their film-making class.
The film festival, held at Compass School, on Route 5 just south of Bellows Falls, is open to the public, with a $3 suggested donation.
Professional filmmakers serve as judges for the films, which brings a touch of competition and added pressure on the students to make films with wide audience appeal.
This interdisciplinary course is a popular course at the school, and is led by humanities teacher Julia Taylor and science/technology teacher, Eric Rhomberg.
Taylor and Rhomberg say they enjoy team teaching the course as the students are completely invested in their films throughout the process, working well beyond school hours to edit, perfect, and complete their projects.
“This is one of the most complex, creative and organizationally challenging projects these students have ever taken on,” Rhomberg says.
From writing the script, recruiting actors, arranging shooting locations, and organizing materials, to editing and sound work, film-making requires students to develop strong skills of problem solving and leadership.
As senior Devin Hennigan observes: “It's great preparation for college and life, as I have to make numerous decisions quickly and with many factors in mind.”
The films (all rated PG or PG-13) are wide-ranging, but many deal with the theme of love and loss: a romantic comedy about a man who chooses an unusual place to meet women, a story of two young people whose brief relationship inspires clarity in their life choices, and a drama about the return of a lost love in the form of a ghost who writes poems.
The course allows for close analysis of films as well as lots of hands-on practice with the camera. On the first day of Rhomberg's class, students are required to make a one-minute film that tells a story. They then make two- to three-minute silent films over the course of a few days.
In the meantime, in Taylor's humanities class, they discuss qualities of a good story, watch film clips for both analysis and inspiration, and learn screenplay formatting.
Eventually, all students write and “pitch” their screenplays, and the students as a team choose what films they want to produce in the final weeks of class.