Jensen Wright sighed. He’d been at his computer for hours, carefully constructing what he envisioned as a perfect encapsulation of his creativity–and just as importantly, the perfect tribute to the blockbuster films like the Star Wars franchise he was captivated by as a kid.
“From the beginning, I wanted to make a movie that would mimic those movies I loved growing up,” Wright said. “It’s super fun, it’s super challenging, but it’s super worth it when you get to watch your own work together on the big screen.”
Hours and hours spent writing, filming, and editing went into producing his 10-minute short film that people can watch during the San Luis Obispo High School Film Festival on April 19 at the Palm Theatre in downtown SLO.
Wright’s film is one of 14 that students made as part of SLO High School’s Digital Media Program capstone project. The program is headed by Zach Roper, who serves as the capstone class’s teacher and the chair for the school’s Career Technical Education Department.
“It’s fun because, with this being the capstone class, I’ve known a lot of these students for four years and to see them go from just kind of playing around with the tools we offer them, to gaining a newfound understanding of cinema history is a really cool evolution,” Roper said.
Some of the influences come from traditional blockbuster films like Star Wars, while others pull from indie arthouse films akin to those that show at the Palm Theatre. Students are exposed to films from all these genres as part of the class curriculum—where they are then taught how to replicate specific effects and styles using programs from the Adobe Suite.
“By the time they start writing their own films, they are incorporating these references into their own movies, similar to the way they spotted them in actual movies,” Roper said.
One of the most ambitious and passionate attempts to replicate a modern film experience is showcased in the cinematic Marvel-like universe woven together by Wright and his classmates Gavin Wren and Jackson Stitt.
“These guys are super committed; they were putting in tons of hours after class,” Roper said. “They pulled off something exceptional, managing to create something that focuses on three separate characters in three separate movies while tying them together in a way that feels cohesive and interesting.”
Wren, who acted in all three Sandbox Trilogy films, along with directing and editing his own, used green screens, custom props, drone shots, and even holograms to get the films closest to the iconic movies that influenced the group along the way—in the process learning how far he could go using the skills he learned in the program.
“It’s really cool to see effects in movies and go, ‘Oh yeah I can replicate that since it’s really simple,’ whereas, with some other effects, it’s like, ‘Oh that’s really cool but I don’t have the money to pull that off,'” Wren said with a laugh. “I went into this not really knowing if this was what I wanted to do, but I walked away liking it, and now I’m actually going to college for it so it’s cool how it worked out.”
Other students took on a more minimalist style compared to the Sandbox Trilogy. Brooklyn Powers’ film Heal focused on the raw emotion of going through a breakup.
“Brooklyn took on this really personal story—a breakup that left her devastated for weeks until she had this conversation with her mom,” Roper said. “She ended up casting her mom for that same scene in the film, and you can just feel this authentic emotion from such a simple conversation because it’s as close to the real experience as it gets.”
Powers originally intended for this scene to be a long shot of her conversation with her mother, but—in a moment Roper feels epitomizes the experience of the program best—realized she could enhance the scene with some different shots.
“It was this ‘Eureka!’ moment for her where she went back and got this panning shot of a wall that has photos of her and her mom growing up to have as B-reel for the scene and it just really drove home that authenticity she was going for,” he said. “When you see that light click on when we are going over the footage in the editing process. It’s just a really cool experience to be part of.”
From spending long afternoons in the classroom crafting the perfect prop to dealing with days where it feels like nature itself is conspiring to prevent them from getting that perfect shot, students like Wright feel the process made the work feel less like a school project and more like a passion project.
“I think that going into this program, I wasn’t necessarily interested in making movies. I’ve always been more of a graphic designer more than anything else,” Wright said. “But seeing the passion people have for [filmmaking] and the risks they are willing to take to make their movie their vision really made me realize this is what I want to do.” Δ
Freelancer Adrian Vincent Rosas is rewatching one of his favorite movies The Empire Strikes Back … for the 500th time. Reach him at arosas@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Apr 6-16, 2023.