The Film Production class at Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies
The Film Production class at Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies was busy shooting a narrative film projects this past semester with the generous help of Vans and Americans for the Arts. With our grant, we were able to hire USC Film School graduate student, Julius Robins, to facilitate workshops and demonstrations of every aspect of film production from script writing to post-production effects. Julius runs our sessions the way film classes are run at USC.
Julius and I put students into groups of eight based on each student’s individual interests, so that every student could be assigned a specific production job. Julius led the screenwriting students through story meetings to help them draft, rewrite, and polish their scripts. Some groups did table readings and took notes to make certain their dialogue had a natural sound. One group is shooting a mockumentary about our school; another group is using the premise of “The Wolf of Wall Street” to make a film about a high school entrepreneur. Their short film is called “The Wolf of 18th Street” (the location of our school), and the third group crafted a murder mystery/coming-of-age story that incorporates Snapchat as a story-telling device to advance the plot.
The Film Production class at Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies
After the scripts were pretty much set, Julius then met with each crew’s producer to teach them how to break down the scripts for scheduling and other pre-production planning. Students scouted locations around campus, cast their actors, and made appointments to interview subjects for the mockumentary. All of the cinematographers and directors then sat down with Julius to begin visual planning by sketching out storyboards, and drawing bird’s-eye diagrams of where actors will be in relation to the camera. Julius did a lighting demonstration and conducted a workshop on post-production sound in which the whole class participated.
The Film Production class at Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies
Students began shooting their films at the end of March, and finished shooting in April. May was set aside for editing, and other post-production tasks. We screened our films the first week of June, and have shared it here for all to see.
Thanks to all at Vans and Americans for the Arts! Enjoy the film to see the wonderful contribution they have made to our school’s film program.
