Disconnected

Denison High School (DHS) students are currently working on film projects they hope to take to All-State next year.

The students are coached by DHS language arts teachers Cynthia Koster and Laurel Olsen.

“They sign up for short film as part of large group speech as an extracurricular - not part of a class,” Olsen said. “They will submit their finished film to IHSSA (Iowa High School Speech Association) contest in January. We had about 30 kids sign up with short film as their main interest, so we formed two groups based on their plot interests.”

The instructors provide guidance, but the projects are led by the students.

The Denison Free Press sat down on Monday with students working on one of the two films to talk about their project.

Ethan Olsen, who is co-directing with Leo Moreno, described the plot of their film, which is titled “Disconnected.”

“It’s about Noah, who is always on his phone and so he misses out on a really exciting day because he’s disconnected,” Ethan said. “It’s about learning the importance of living in the moment and enjoying life; that’s the main takeaway.”

“Put down your phone, buddy,” is what the main character needs to do, said Adonay Arellano.

As of Monday night, the students had shot scenes in a house, The Bake Shop and Café and at the Denison
Hy-Vee.

The students said they have had to work on a variety of skills to move the production forward.

Ethan said a fight scene in the film will be one of the most-challenging parts to get right.

“I’ve never filmed a fight scene before,” he said. “You don’t realize how much goes into choreography and making it look realistic - while not being too cheesy.”

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From left, DHS students Jorge Romualdo, Landon Seebeck, Leo Moreno, Adonay Arellano, Ethan Olsen, Kylee Skarin, Alex Henningsen, and Kimberly Ramirez meet with DHS language arts teacher Cynthia Koster prior to a shoot on Monday night.

Jorge Romualdo, a team member, said time management is one of the skills the film crew has had to learn; getting everyone together on time is not always easy but is necessary because everyone has a role to play behind the camera and in front of it.

“Everybody has at least a small role,” Ethan said.

Leo agreed that time management is key.

“Our film is only five minutes,” he said. “It’s kind of hard figuring out what scene should be much longer than others and finding time for every single scene.”

Because of changes to the view outside the Bake Shop and Café windows, a second shoot day there will have to be carefully matched to the scenes already shot.

“I feel like if we just refilm the whole thing it will go a lot faster,” said Adonay about the Bake Shop scenes. “If we try to perfectly match what we had before, it will be a hassle.”

Ethan thought some of the shots from the earlier shoot could still be used.

The students agreed that they want to make a project good enough to be selected for the IHSSA All-State contest.

“That’s the end goal,” Ethan said.

“I’m a senior, so I really want to end off the year great,” Leo said. “I’ve been doing short film for three years, so I think it would be special to go out with a bang.”

Ethan said he looks forward to seeing what an audience thinks of their film.

“It’s nice to see people’s reactions for the first time,” he said.

Ethan said he got a little too worked up when they showed their film production at the Home Show last year.

“I was giddy seeing everybody’s reactions,” he said.

In a meeting with Koster before a shoot on Monday, the students set out a plan to get all the scenes in the film shot before the end of the year.

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