Freshman Maria Tolone plays the role of Eva in “One Chance,” a short film that was entered in the 2017 NJ High School Film Challenge.
BRONX. NY – Ten students in the Truman Media Program grabbed their cameras and took on the New Jersey High Film Challenge at the end of April.
The two teams of five included freshmen through seniors. They were given a prompt that included a film title, a character name and a prop that all had to be a part of the production. This year the teams were given “One Chance” as the title, a character named Ray/Rae and a notebook as the prop.
“It was cool getting to do this as a freshman,” said John Rivera. He and fellow freshman Maria Tolone joined juniors and seniors for their production. “I learned so much working with them – since they’ve been doing this a lot longer than me.”
Claudy McLeod and Emerald Fletcher portray a scene from “One Chance,” a short film entered in the 2017 NJ High School Film Challenge.
Their contest entries will be judged against dozens of others submitted by students from across the state of New Jersey. Truman was invited by the teachers at Jackson Liberty High School in Jackson, NJ. Their school hosts the contest each year.
“We first met Mr. Ferone and Mr. Noble at the STN Convention in 2014 in Orlando. They run a top notch program down there, so I’m hoping to learn all I can from them and bring it here to my classroom in Truman,” Media teacher Dave Roush said.
On May 25th, the two competing teams, along with about additional Media students will go to Jackson Liberty for a day-long workshop event. At the end of the event the top 25 films will be screened, and awards given out.
“The trip to Liberty is a first for us,” Roush said. “I’m hoping to do more trips where we go check out what other schools are doing so we can continue to learn. No matter how good you think you are – there’s always someone who’s doing it better. And we want to tap into that.”