Huntington High School filmmakers have been immersed in the 10 Day Film Challenge, a high powered contest that requires teams of participants to write, shoot, edit and score a movie in just 10 school days during their film class period only.
This marks the third year that Huntington filmmakers are participating in the challenge. Last year, two teams from Huntington captured sixth and ninth place, respectively. “We begin by competing against schools from all over New York,” said art teacher Heather Swan, who heads the high school’s video arts program. “If we place in the top five, we get to move on to the national competition. Every year our students have ranked higher than the prior year.”
Founded by educators with over 75 combined years in television and film production education and administration, the 10 Day Film Challenge is a competition that fits perfectly into a 21st century Huntington classroom.
The challenge is traced to the concept developed by the 48-Hour Film Project, which is currently held in over 130 cities across five continents with about 60,000 filmmakers that produce over 3,000 films annually.
The 10 Day Film Challenge began with three New Jersey high schools in 2011. It has now grown to 145 high schools with more than 4,500 student filmmakers participating from 25 states. It’s anticipated the initiative will spread from coast to coast in coming years.
“When we attend the annual screening and see all the other amazing videos from around the state we get so inspired to push or filming and storytelling abilities for the following year,” Mrs. Swan said.
Three groups of Huntington students are working on three separate films. “On day one, the groups pick a genre out of a hat,” said Mrs. Swan, explaining how the process works. “The morning of day one, we are also e-mailed the main character’s name and backstory, line of dialogue, prop and cinematic technique that all need to be incorporated into our stories.”
Huntington’s three films include Left to Write, a sci-fi movie; Soundbite, a “high school slice of life” and Notes of Emotion, a romance film.
The Left to Write team includes Noah Morris, Griffin Bluemer, Erick Joya-Amaya, David Mosden and Thomas Friebolin. The Soundbite team is comprised of Charlie Ehrman, Emma Pipolo, Jack Glicker, Jackie Caravetto and Lindsay Martin. The Notes of Emotion team features Celine Palermo, Luis Cuji, Tania Ulloa and Marco Caporuscio.
“We began this journey on March 20 and it ended last Friday,” Mrs. Swan. “The students are not allowed to work on the films outside of school or on weekends so we have all been working extra hours after school for the past two weeks. I couldn’t be more proud or excited about the quality of these films and the incredible effort all the students have been putting forth.”
Visit www.tendayfilm.org for more information about the 10 Day Film Festival.
