By LILY APPLEBEE

Featured Image: A collection of old film tapes scattered about, with the wheel and clapperboard right until the title of the article ‘RUSD Annual Filmfest.’ (LILY APPLEBEE/Birdbox Image)

The Redlands Unified School District (RUSD) has just recently begun hosting an event known as the Filmfest. This was created by those in RUSD Technology, Innovation and Accountability, and this year, they announced the third annual festival. This event is a celebration of student creativity, particularly in digital storytelling, and it’s an incredible opportunity for students to see their work portrayed on the big screen of Harkins Theater.

This, of course, is for students only, but it’s open to anyone at any of the elementary, middle and high schools. All participants are entered into a raffle to win a handheld video camera, no matter whether they get to see their short film on the big screen or not. These films can be either fiction (actors) or nonfiction, and their only requirement is that they are not longer than eight minutes. 

Of course, the festival’s nominees who get their short film put on at Harkins will have that event occur on April 29, but the last day to submit for entry is March 6. 

If you would like to submit to have such a wonderful opportunity and get entered into the raffle, you must join the google classroom, that way you can better access the rules, updates, tutorials and other important information. The code is:

5doo32h4.

If you’re interested, you should must also fill out the form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfkagAPLl7ylsLRAYNCk_Tf_M5UhcwNjuMWO-VmVatIgkUmLw/viewform

The multimedia class at CV (taught by Andrew Mitchell) focuses on digital storytelling and how to create a script, film, and everything else you need to know. One student from the class, Preston Honeter, allowed me to interview him about his entry to the RUSD Filmfest and some of his thoughts on storytelling and how he intends to pursue that in the future. 

Featured Image: Citrus Valley High School student Preston Honeter, posing for a photo with the green screen ready to set whatever scene he envisions. (LILY APPLEBEE/Birdbox Image)

First, I asked what exactly his entry is about, and more specifically, what the story of it is.

Preston said: “Since there’s not a lot of stuff that can be done for fiction, I decided to go with non-fiction.”

One day, he thought to himself: 

“Y’know, we could just interview the theater department here and can get their thoughts on their creative processes and hopefully someone will see them and be like: ‘Oh, I want to do that!’ or ‘I could do that!’”

Then I asked, were there any funny interactions that happened? He said:

“Oh, a lot. Like, one of the questions I asked was like: ‘In one word what would you describe the theater experience?’ 90% of them said ‘Collaborative’ and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’”

The other funny moment was a lot less humorous, that’s for sure, as Preston said:

“Another one was when we were trying to film … somehow an 128 gigabyte chip that gets cleared every two weeks isn’t cleared since like before winter break … so I’m just sitting here interviewing this guy and mid-way through it just cuts and I was like: ‘Brother.’”

As some entries make it to Harkins, I asked him about that. If his film gets nominated to be showcased in the Harkins movie theater, does that opportunity excite him at all? Preston said:

“Absolutely, actually. It’s like the main reason I’m doing multimedia and I’m doing theater is because I wanna be a writer. I wanna be a director for film; for media. Ever since I was like, seven. At first it was just writing, because I love making characters. Writing is just like, I can do anything that’s appropriate … and even though I love writing characters, I also like hearing people share their inspirations because the process and like the effort people put into these things to these stories and these characters, that like genuinely brings me joy and passion in life. And I love that.” 

Going from that, I asked about what he said about wanting to be a director, and if there are any movies or TV shows that have truly stuck with and inspired him. Preston immediately went:

“Oh god, do you want a list or do you just want top three?”

Soon enough, he had a narrowed list:

“I really wanna do animation, and a movie that really spoke to me as a kid when I first saw it was ‘The LEGO Movie,’ actually. I love the animation in that. A kind of recent one that did come out–if I’m remembering, four years ago–was ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.’ That was really good animation. ‘Spider-man Into the Spider-verse’ was also really good. I just want to do mainly animation projects because that stuff is like, genuinely cool. Like, I feel like we can do better things with animation than you can with just live-action and CGI, because you’re not limited and it’s slightly easier. But I also just kind of want to break the stereotype that animation is only for ‘little kids’ in general, or are cartoons. Because there are so many shows out there that do that, like ‘Invincible.’”

Next we talked about Filmfest as an event. I mentioned how, when I had gone in middle school, it was an amazing opportunity to see our work and others’, and make connections. Preston agreed and said: 

“Stuff like this–film, media–gets people together and gets people interested. You go to this thing and I think a lot of people think like: ‘no one else will understand this.’ But you go to this play, this theater, this movie, this show, this concert and they see this whole thing filled with people who want to see this, too. And that is really amazing to me. The fact that these people who put a lot of time and effort into these projects are very noticed.”

Featured Image: Citrus Valley High School student Preston Honeter now working on editing the final product of his Filmfest entry. (LILY APPLEBEE/Birdbox Image)

As the interview neared its ending, Preston said one last thing that really stuck with me as it comes to the creative process and–more specifically–the creative product. He said: 

“You can tell if the actors, if the directors, if everyone had fun making it because it’s good and the characters are good. The staging, the cinematography and the animation looks good because they had fun doing it. You don’t get that with someone who had a bad director or someone who has poor work ethics, and most importantly A.I. You don’t get that, you don’t get that feeling of: ‘Oh, this was made passionately. And I love that, I love that so much.”