On Halloween, Berkeley High School showed short horror films made by students at a film festival in the little theater. Amanda Marini teaches media classes at BHS and has been looking for a way to broadcast her students’ work. Marini put together the horror themed film festival to showcase student films from two of her classes.
“The film festival includes work from the second year students in IB film and the advanced studio editing class,” Marini said. “It’s been amazing. I am always so impressed with what my students are capable of when it comes to filmmaking.”
Marini tries to give her students as much creative freedom as she can.
“I left it really wide open. They did a little research into different types of horror and thought about how horror can be a reflection of society’s fears and of your fears,” Marini said. “I am really pleased with the results and I can see the areas for growth, as well.”
Miguel Huhndorf-Lima, a senior in his second year of IB film, talked about the creative guidelines Marini laid out for them. He said, “Really the prompt was, ‘Make a horror film with little dialogue and visual storytelling’ and you could take that any direction you wanted to.”
Huhndorf-Lima’s film,“Eyes Closed” is about a nurse who starts to have visions and
sees from something else’s eyes.
Huhndorf-Lima described the script-writing process as, “the loosest process I’ve had writing a script. I had one idea where I just wanted a very loose story structure. I just wanted startling imagery. That somehow boiled down to seeing these visions and images flashing to the mind. And the story kind of made itself from there.”
He shot all of his footage in one night, and spent the rest of his process editing and revising.
“I really liked horror movies and was really excited to make it. I had a lot of inspiration to pull from. I’m really happy with the finished project,” said Camhan Ngo, a senior in IB HL film.
Ngo’s film,“Inhabited,” is about a girl who has recurring dreams about her basement, and eventually decides to go check what’s down there.
She gets locked inside by an evil fairy who shape shifts into her and takes over her life.
“I wanted to play with the idea of taking over someone’s life and living it,” Ngo said.
Kaitlin Blazej Moore, a BHS senior, is showcasing their film “Little Things” which follows a girl who starts to notice little things mysteriously shift and move around her. She at first can’t figure out who is doing it, but eventually finds out that she’s moving things herself without remembering it.
“So there’s three acts, the beginning, the middle which is rising action, and the climax. With horror it usually ends on a climax, there’s no resolution. So just figuring out those points of action I wanted to have and then making a mood board. The whole vibe of it,” said Blazej Moore.
All of these films and more were shown on Tuesday, Oct. 31 in the little theater.