Film

November 7, 2025

Revolution Me Festival in NYC

Jupiter and Ivor traveled to New York City for the Revolution Me Film Festival which took place in the Kumble Theatre at Long Island University in Brooklyn. They had the opportunity to network with American Film Institue (AFI) graduates and members of Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). Jupiter took home the award for Best Director for a High School Short!

They also enjoyed exploring the southern half of Manhattan in the Houston, Greenwich Village, and Washington Square neighborhoods. While in Times Square, they picked up some of the half off criterion deals at the Barnes and Noble.

Another highlight of the trip was attending the premier of a new Norwegian film called “Sentimental Value” before it even hit most art house theaters across the US.

May 27, 2025

2025 Annual Film Lab Showcase at the Grandin Theater

The 9th Annual Film Lab Showcase at the Grandin Theater this May featured four short films produced, written, filmed, and edited by high school students. The red carpet event represented the culmination of students’ group curriculum based learning for the 2024-25 school year.

We’d like to congratulate our beginner film lab students, Bee M, Reece B, and Theo H, as wells our advanced students, Ivor G and Jupiter C, on the efforts they put in to making this premiere a great success.

We’d also like to note our teacher and student actors, who played varying roles from lead to extras – Josh, Eva Rose S-W, Sarah P, Anna H, Miles C, and Sori M.

Sarah P shared:

I had such a great time being in “My Shadow Is Brighter”. The cast and crew for it were so fun to work with and the premiere went amazingly well.

November 15, 2023

Grandin Film Lab

Jupiter C and Ivor G are currently taking an exciting course at the Grandin Film Lab. The process of scriptwriting is a crucial part of filmmaking, as it sets the foundation for the entire production. They’ve been learning about storytelling, editing, directing, and sound operation, all of which are essential elements of a successful film.

Once they are finished writing their scripts, they will submit them for a possible opportunity to have them turned into short films and shown at film festivals across the country.

April 19, 2023

Original Space Operas

Students in Film History: Sci-Fi Cinema developed screenplay treatments, character biographies, and advertisement campaigns for original space operafilms.

Paula S.’s space opera, As Above, So Below, follows a Venusian biologist who is sent to earth to observe and study the evolved differences in the Earth people versus the Venusians. Unfamiliar with the advanced technology and unadapted to Earth’s environment, this proves to be difficult for the protagonist. As the protagonist adjusts to planet Earth, she quickly realizes that being reliant on this technology isn’t sustainable and changes need to be made.

Xan W.’s space opera, On a Grassless Globe, features a future in which the mining of asteroids and colonization of other planets has been made possible and families run hereditary industries like feudal lords. The Earth is now uninhabitable by the standards of those living on other worlds, empty of human habitation by Omni-Industrial decree. The planet is allowed to return to its natural state before the expansion of civilization as the torch of humanity is passed to the stars. Now that decree is being challenged by fundamentalist movements that wish to return to their ancestral homelands.

In Tristan S.’s space opera, A Spore In Space, the ambitious leader of the city “Lyra Prime” ventures into space to discover what’s out there and become a pioneer for his people, only to discover the harsh reality that he is no longer at the top of everything, and then has to find his purpose in life. For his advertisement campaign, Tristan created this movie poster.

February 24, 2023

The Kuleshov Effect

Students in Film History: Sci-Fi Cinema replicated the Kuleshov Effect, an editing experiment developed by Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the early 20th century. In the absence of an establishing shot, early film viewers assumed that two-shot sequences, in isolation, were linked in space, time, and motivation. This is the so-called Kuleshov Effect. Does Xan W. look hungry to you, too?

The Kuleshov Effect

The Kuleshov Effect - Xan's recreation

February 15, 2023

Le Voyage dans la Lune

Students in Film History: Sci-Fi Cinema retold the story of Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) in the “cine-roman” style of Chris Marker’s short film La Jetée (1962).

February 2, 2023

Experimenting with a Photo-Novel

Students in Film History: Sci-Fi Cinema experimented with different camera orientations in a B&W “photo-novel” inspired by Chris Marker’s short film La Jetée (1962).

January 23, 2023

Poe Celebration Field Trip

Film students of the Horror & Comedy and Sci-Fi Cinema Film History classes travelled to Richmond for the Poe Museum’s Centennial Celebration. This field trip featured lectures and a panel discussion by writers R.L. Stine (Goosebumps) and Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Death, Black Panther). In addition to exploring Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy through contemporary fiction, our current students had the pleasure of sharing a meal with Community High School alumni Da’Quan Saunders-McNear (’16) and Chantel Wilson (’16).

January 16, 2023

Spooky Photographs

Students in the Film Production: Horror & Comedy class experimented with on-screen space, off-screen space, and the rule of thirds to spook spectators in these photographs.