True to form, two students from Otago Girls’ High School were working on their next project when they discovered their previous efforts had been selected for screening in New York.
The Book directed by Katherine McArthur and The Fallen King directed by Babet Doherty were selected out of 3000 worldwide entries to be screened at the All-American High School Film Festival, billed as the world’s largest high school film festival.
The films were recently screened at the AMC Empire 25 Theatres in Times Square.
Both films were created outside school hours by members of the school’s film club and were a collective effort.
Students took on a range of roles during pre-production, filming and post-production.
Katherine said The Book was the club’s first short film project, so there was a lot to learn.
The film was inspired by St Dominic’s Priory that the pupils could see from the school.
"We thought it looked really creepy and interesting."
The film begins with a girl reading a book in a library, who is then transported into a mysterious world, filmed inside empty rooms in the priory.
Katherine said she enjoyed developing the visual aspect of the film and the composition of shots.
As a director it was "quite challenging" because there was a lot to manage, from shooting lists to directing actors.
"Lots of work to make sure everything runs smoothly."
Babet said The Fallen King explored the relationship between a young girl and her grandfather.
"Over time as the granddaughter grows up she starts to become less interested in seeing her granddad, she starts going on her phone, she starts wanting to hang out with her friends."
The film club was more prepared for this short film, with a more fully realised shot list.
"We spent a lot of time on the storyboard, redoing it over and over again."
The club also branched out to engage actors, including an older man as the grandfather, and a 6-year-old girl and a teenager to represent the granddaughter at two different points in her life.
Babet said she found cinematography one of the most interesting parts of the process.
"I’m also really interested in editing because you can have a lot of footage, but editing is really where you tell the story, because it can change everything."
Otago Girls’ High School Spanish teacher Miguel Herrera manages the school’s film club, which was established in 2022.
He emphasised pupils used a cinema camera, which required many manual processes such as focus pulling, exposure and shutter speed.
"The footage is filmed in RAW so they do colour grading and colour correction."
Katherine said the film club submitted the films to the All-American High School Film Festival last year.
"We had kind of forgotten about it and figured we didn’t get in."
They had moved on to a different project, which was creating a promotional video for the school during the school holidays.
Babet said she, Katherine and Mr Herrera had spent a long day editing and had decided to walk down to a fish and chip shop.
"He is ordering fish and chips, I look at my phone and I show Katherine and I’m like ‘what is this?"’
Katherine said they were "super happy" and began celebrating inside the fish and chip shop because both of their films had been selected for the festival.
The success had been an inspirational experience for both teenagers, and had not only encouraged them to continue making films but also consider it as a future career.
Both intend to study film at Victoria University Wellington next year.
"Personally I would have never probably considered doing it if I hadn’t have joined this club and done all these things over the past few years," Katherine said.
- The Book and The Fallen King can be viewed by visiting the Otago Girls’ High School YouTube channel.
