Cougars Create Short Films

On Monday, October 21, the Honors TV and Film class and the Charlotte Catholic Short Film Club kicked off an exciting week with their entries into the North Carolina Thespian Filmworks Competition. 

NCT Filmworks is a week-long short film challenge open to North Carolina middle school and High School students. Contestants have one week to write, film, and edit an original five-minute project to be submitted for evaluation. All entries must incorporate a specific prop and line of dialogue in order to qualify for recognition. This year’s prop was a rag, and the line was “I can’t understand you” or “I cannot understand you.” The accepted genres ranged from western/neo-western to psychological thriller or romantic comedy. 

Mr. Riter, Charlotte Catholic’s theater teacher, found out about the opportunity through the school’s involvement with the International Thespian Society, an honor society for middle and high school theater students. Mr. Riter shared that a previous class participated in the challenge and “had success with a few awards.” In recent years, the theater department has been “so busy that we haven't kept up with it” but is finally back to compete. The groups have kept their plans secret, but Mr. Riter shared that of the few drafts he’s seen, “they have come up with some pretty neat stuff.” 

 On the TV and film team are seniors Anna Wall and Aidan McGuire and junior Paige Lewis. Aidan shared that they chose to do a psychological thriller “because it was the most attainable for us, location wise.” Anna shared about the experience: “It's been a lot of fun–very creative. I love writing, and I got to write a lot.”  Due to the nature of the competition, Anna found the experience “also stressful, just because we don't have a lot of time during the school day to work on it.” However, as creative director, she feels that she has learned to lead a group and is very happy with the finished film. The three upperclassmen served as creative directors but also received help from freshmen Jack Gordon and Vicky Mascia in the On-the-Stage theater class. 

The Short Film club, run by juniors Elliott Oravetz, Maye Glessner and Jane Dunlap, chose to make a horror film. To celebrate the end of the challenge, they had a screening of their short film in the black box theater. 

While there are no plans for a premier as of now, the films will be posted on the North Carolina Thespian Filmworks website. The groups hope to draw some recognition for their hard work and creativity.