At the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, the Grove Cinematic All American team sat with bated breath as they awaited the results from their participation in the invitational short film contest. No one expected them to receive any kind of recognition, but their success would soon be revealed.
Six students from Grove Cinematic traveled to New York City in October to compete in the largest international high school film festival in the world: All American. The team consisted of Irelyn Eanes, Abigail Fleeman, Liam Brown-Pierce, Nathan Smith, and Shrivatsa Tadikonda. The group was led by director, Olivia Pacini who attended the festival last year.
“There was a lot of miscommunication and that definitely impacted our ability to make a good film last year and so I came out of it not as satisfied as I wanted to be,” senior, Olivia Pacini said. “So this year, I really wanted to make sure that I was going into it with a really good idea in mind and really strong sense of collaboration with everyone.”
They worked together in the short film invitational. This contest required them to plan out and script a short film over the course of two months. They would then have three days in New York to film and edit the six minute project.
“When I tell you there’s 30 million different scripts, that’s an understatement, because there’s just so many, because we had so many different ideas,” senior, Irelyn Eanes said. “Putting it all together was definitely a challenge.”
In August, the team received their prompt. The only requirement for their story was that the title must include the words, “What’s Inside”. They chose to write a story about a break up called, “What’s Inside Our Memories”. From there, screenwriters Pacini, Fleeman, and Brown-Pierce began to write a short script. Based on the script, scheduling and shot planning would start to come together.
“Each minute, each second of the day, we planned that together. Exactly what location we were filming at, exactly what costumes the actors would need for those scenes, and exactly what lines to go over,” Pacini said. “It was just a lot of super strict, detailed planning.”
Their film also included an original score by Abigail Fleeman. The group created a list of musicians that inspired the music including Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, and Fleetwood Mac. Fleeman recorded the music with equipment and instruments at her home prior to leaving for New York.
“I’ve been making songs since I was six, so it just felt like a natural role for me to fall into and a way for me to play into my strengths,” senior, Abigail Fleeman said. “I wanted to be able to contribute in the best way I could.”
Before leaving, the team filmed a rough draft in Prosper called a “cardboard film”. This helped them practice shots, test out line reads, and figure out what roles worked best for each of them.
“My favorite memory about being on set was probably seeing the real actors say their lines and seeing everything come together in real time,” senior, Liam Brown-Pierce said. “Especially after our whole production process.”
While in New York, the group filmed all over the city. The subway, Metropolitan Muesum of Art, Central Park, Little Italy, Times Square, and Washington Square Park were all featured in the film. After two days of filming, editors Eanes and Smith dedicated the third day to editing at their hotel.
“I feel like editing has never been a challenge. There’s just so much you can do whenever you create things,” Eanes said. “That’s kind of what keeps me going, and it’s just fun. So I love editing.”
One of the group’s biggest challenges was feeling rushed in the editing process. With little time, they worked up until the last minute to submit the film.
“We submitted two and a half hours late. That was so, so stressful,” Pacini said. “That was honestly the only stressful part of the trip, in my opinion.”
The film was screened at the AMC theater in Times Square along with other submissions to the competition from Prosper and Rock Hill High School. The team then attended a red carpet and awards ceremony at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn where they would wait for their category to be called.
“Everybody sat up in their seats when they saw our name on the board, because we were kind of towards the bottom screen. We were kind of looking to where we were at and then saw our name,” senior, Nathan Smith said. “It was crazy, because no one expected us to get nominated.”
The film was nominated as a top ten finalist out of about 30 other submissions. The group will go on to submit the film for other competitions including UIL next semester. The short film is available on their YouTube channel: @GroveCinematic.
“I was really happy because we had worked so hard and to see that culminate into actual success was really a amazing moment for me,” Fleeman said. “I was just really proud of these people that I had been working with for two months, and it was a really beautiful moment.”
