Students ready to show skills
Eastside Film Festival set for today at high school
LANCASTER — Six original student films will be showcased today in the fifth annual Eastside High School Student Film Festival.
The six short films, each is about 10 minutes long, are all completely student-produced — from the student screenwriters to the student directors, actors and editors. Each film’s soundtrack and promotional posters were made p.m. 3200 The in East by the festival students. Ave. school’s J-8. starts theater, Admis- at 5 sion and More is seven free. than teachers 100 students participated project. in The the project six-month involved long students from English teacher James Tilton’s creating writing class; Michael Gonzales’ film class; Pruitt’s drama class; Steph- anie Gillissen’s stagecraft class; Dajuan Cowan’s sound engineering class; and Tyra Wallace and Dana Mainzer’s art classes. The six films selected for the festival are “Their Eyes Blink Red,” “Curiosity’s Curse,” “The Last Vision,” “Silent Secrets,” “The Band Room Kids,” and “The Successor.” “The Successor,” directed senior Daynara Torres and Jaylin Martinez, was designed to be a Chicano-style film that faces the world struggles of gambling and homelessness, Torres wrote in an email.
The co-directors were assigned to choose a script that they believed would create the most captivating film as well as relay a message. In the story, the character Navarro Rodriguez faces the consequences of a gambling addiction.
“We loved that script because it had something that made the audience look into the real world and be able to make some connections that people know is a real life struggle for those around them,” Torres wrote.
She added, “Overall, making ‘The Successor’ was a very fun project because us both being apart of the Chicano culture it allowed us to create a vision into a very common yet incredibly unique world that you have
to be apart to paint the correct picture.”
The most challenging part of making the film was that Torres and Martinez wanted to paint the vision of Chicano culture; however, only one of the actors in the film had that background.
“To overcome this challenge, we had them watch movies of historical Chicano culture, such as ‘Selena’ and the hot Cheeto movie (“Flamin’ Hot),” Torres wrote. “They were able to pick up, not just the way in which Chicanos dress, but the way in which they speak as well overall making the film even better.”
Seniors Jo Martin Sustento and Alina Renteria co-wrote murder mystery “Their Eyes Blink Red.” Having their script selected felt “truly invigorating,” Sustento wrote in an email.
“For all the scripts we had written in creative writing, ‘Their Eyes Blink Red’ was the one we felt the most proud of and felt would make the best film of all of them,” he wrote. “Discovering that our vision for the film would become reality was one of the highlights of my year.”
The story features a violent serial murderer dubbed by the media as “The Lacrimal Scarlet,” who has been terrorizing the city with an incredibly violent and brutal poison that makes its poor victims cry tears of blood shortly before death.
“Unlike what many people believe about writing, coming up with the idea for ‘Their Eyes Blink Red’ was not a very linear process,” Sustento wrote.
He and Renteria dedicated almost an entire day of brainstorming and throwing around ideas at each other to see what would stick.
“When we had finished developing one point of the story, our immediate thought when we moved onto the next one was, ‘How could we keep people wanting more?’ ” he wrote. “It was that thinking that made this film something that we were proud of.”
Sustento gave the finished product his overwhelming seal of approval.
“The story plays out almost exactly how we expected it would on the big screen, and every element of its production came together,” he wrote. “I am the most selfish person on the planet, and even then I can’t help but praise the work that the actors and crew all put into bringing our writing to life. All of our expectations for the film were knocked out of the park.”
Senior Armani Jefferson served as cinematographer for “Silent Secrets,” a psychological murder mystery in which the main character kills his best friend at a Halloween party, which puts him into a confused state of mind unaware, unheard and unsure of who the culprit is.
As a student in teacher Michael Gonzales’ advanced film and production class, Jefferson was given the choice between cinematographer or director.
“I chose cinematographer due to my passion for being behind the camera, shooting the different shots along with editing,” she wrote.
Jefferson does not want to pursue a filmmaking career field but she was very grateful for being able to be a part of the film festival.
“I worked with the director a lot when it came down to good lighting and staging and many more to make our film what it is today although we faced some challenges,” she wrote. “If it wasn’t for our different inputs and opinions on certain things, the film would not be what it is today and I’m quite happy with the way everything came out for the film. It was a team-building experience, which made it fun in the end.”
Film teacher Gonzales praised the quality the students’ work.
“The quality of these films is what excites me the most about this year’s film festival,” he wrote in an email. “They are truly a combination of work from many students here at Eastside. The creative writing students wrote great scripts, my film students put their own spin and style on the filming and editing of the films, the stagecraft students designed realistic sets, the drama students acted their hearts out, the sound engineering students delivered excellent music compositions, and the digital arts classes created some captivating movie posters. It truly was a group effort!”
To help prepare his students for the months-long project, students in teacher Tilton’s creative writing class watched films from previous years and even a short film that he made back when he was in high school, Tilton explained in an email.
The students broke into groups of two and worked together to write a five-to-10-page screenplay over the process of a week.
“We discuss story arc, as well as the essentials of each genre,” he wrote. “And then students open up their screenplay to the rest of the class for peer feedback. We repeat this process twice more over the next two weeks, with the only change being that the writing groups must choose a different genre that they haven’t done before.”
Once each writing group completed three screenplays, they then picked their favorite and sent that screenplay to Gonzales’ film class, where those students picked their favorite six screenplays to actually turn into films. Then, once those screenplays were selected, they brought in Pruitt’s drama students to play the various roles and Gillissen’s stagecraft kids to create the sets and props. Once filming was completed, the rough drafts of each film were given to Cowan’s sound engineering class so students could create soundtracks, and Wallace and Mainzer’s art classes so students could create posters.
“It’s so wonderful to see how this project has grown over the past five years,” Tilton wrote. “I’ve loved being able to see more and more classes get involved, and I’m so thankful for all the teachers and students who helped make this year’s film festival a reality. Students are definitely excited as well! In fact, this year we were able to bring back some students who were part of last year’s film festival. Last year’s Best Director winner Stephanie Silva is one of our judges this year, and most of the other directors acted as mentors to this year’s groups.”
After the screening there will be trophies for the winners of categories such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Acting Performance. The 12 judges include returning judge Nicholas von Sternberg, a former Hollywood cinematographer with a 30-year career in the industry; first-time judge Jacobo Garrido, a news reporter from L28 News; and local author Kirsten Larson, a first-time judge who had published more than a dozen nonfiction books for children.