Grace Film Team Competes in All American High School Film Festival
This year the Grace Church School film team competed in the All American High School Film Festival, where they faced off against other schools from across the country. So many students joined the film team this year that the team had to be divided into two separate squads and were comprised of sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Each group created its film and competed against different teams at the festival.
Each year the All American High School Film Festival has a different prompt that teams must follow. The prompt this year was “state of mind,” meaning each team would have to create a team name and story influenced by a “state of mind.” One of the teams was called ‘A Dream State of Mind’ and the other was named ‘A Fraid State of Mind,’ the latter of which was written by sophomore Liz Pace. A Dream State of Mind was directed by Drew Lerner’ 21 and written by Cadence Plenge ‘21 and Nimah O’Hara ‘21. Both teams filmed the week of Yom Kippur in October, and it took them a total of three days to complete the filming and editing process.
Both films were finished on time but they did experience some delays while filming. The film, ‘A Dream State of Mind’ was supposed to be shot at Lincoln Center, but the squad was told to leave because they were filming on city property and were accused of “disrupting the peace,” resulting in them having to find a new location. Fortunately, the team was able to finish filming shortly after and then began the editing process the next day. Some problems also emerged in the filming of ‘A Fraid State of Mind.` The team had to deal with disagreements between team members on the creative direction of the film. Most of the fighting resulted from one of the members of the team acting as a director, even though he wasn’t the director. Luckily, these conflicts were resolved and the film was finished on time, as well.
At 12:00 pm on Thursday, October 11th both teams started the editing process at a hotel in Time Square, with each team receiving one computer to edit their films. This part of the filmmaking process took a long time, partly because several members were not there for the first day of editing. Jane Arons ‘21, a member of the team that filmed ‘A Fraid State of Mind’, said she stayed at the hotel until 8 pm. Most people involved in the creation of these films agree that they were both extremely well done, though sadly neither teams won any awards at All American High School Film Festival. Nevertheless, everyone on the film team is proud of the work that they accomplished.
Photo Credit: Mr. Todd