Flintridge Prep Literature Students Make Short Films Demonstrating Applied Practical Knowledge of Filmmaking Techniques

“After we learned a technique in class, we’d journal about how we might use it. Being able to draw from that process throughout the year helped as we were making the film,” shares Nico, a student in Dr. Tyke O’Brien’s senior honors English elective, The Language of Film: Cinema of California.

While many literature classes deal in analyzing techniques like synecdoche and meter, this course discusses diegetic sound and mise-en-scène to analyze the inextricable relationship between Los Angeles and the movies.

In lieu of a standard written final paper, the students wrote, produced, directed, and edited their own short films demonstrating applied practical knowledge of numerous filmmaking techniques they had studied. Aside from having to demonstrate at least three filmmaking techniques, the films also had to take place during a single day and, like the films studied in class, tell a compelling story about a unique aspect of the Los Angeles area. At the end of the course, the students got to watch their films on the big screen at a red carpet premiere at local independent theater Vidiots.

Read Flintridge Prep’s Perspective article “Inquiry & Collaboration on the Big Screen” in the first issue of Perspectives or online at https://buff.ly/3TJR1no.

Flintridge Preparatory School, 4543 Crown Ave., La Cañada Flintridge, (818) 790-1178 or visit www.flintridgeprep.org.