Student Short Films Showcased at 88 Film Continuum
The budding auteurs of Eastchester High School had a chance to show off their first films of the year last week, as Video Production Club members screened shorts that were made as part of the organization’s 88 Film Continuum Event on Nov. 22.
The 88 Film Continuum Festival challenges student filmmakers to write, shoot, and edit short films over the course of a three-day weekend. The students—some working in groups, others alone—were randomly assigned a genre of film at 3 p.m. on the Thursday before Veterans Day and tasked with incorporating certain elements—a specific character’s name, an occupation, a prop and a line of dialogue—that would have to be used in each of the films showcased at the event.
Video Production Club advisor Michael Goldstein said that asking the club’s members to complete their projects in such an abbreviated time span forces them to work under pressure and teaches them how to adapt to challenges on set, important skills for when the students begin to work on their projects for Film Festival at the end of the year.
“The problem that kids can have with their film projects, if they have an entire year to think about it, is that they never get around to making it,” he said. “But mandating that it has to be done in a certain amount of time gets them to pick a story, stick with it and try to see it through to the end.”
The improvisational nature of the 88 Film Continuum saw students tackle a wide variety of projects and produce six entries that included a computer-animated ghost story, a wistful tale about a globe-trotting cellphone, and an action film that featured a popular commercial mascot as its primary antagonist.
Stefano Renzo, the Video Production Club President, said that the slapdash nature of the the films is part of the charm of the project and helps connect members to the joy of filmmaking no matter how much previous experience they might have had working in the medium.
“I plan to go to film school and I’m going to have to make a film this year for my portfolio,” said Stefano. “But with this, you're coming up with things on the fly and you’re not hyper-focused on making sure the lighting is perfect or the characters are in the same position they were in for the last shot so it’s lot more carefree.”
And although Renzo admitted that his film for the event might not have been up to his usual exacting standards, the opportunity to cut loose and create art with a cast and crew of friends was still a worthwhile experience.
“There are certain things I look at now and I know they could have been better from a technical standpoint,” he said. “But it was a great time, a great way to spend the weekend working and having fun.”