Students at the Delta school district’s film academy have created a couple of very different takes on their year-end project.
The budding filmmakers split into two teams to complete a short film called Spy School.
The film, a story about a group of teens in a school for secret agents that discovers something is not quite right, is the big final project for students enrolled in the program.
They were busy filming and editing right up until a district premiere at the Delta Manor Education Centre earlier this week.
Both versions of the film featured students behind the camera and in front of it.
Jennifer Harbott, the teacher co-coordinator for the film and acting academies, said the project gave the students an opportunity to further explore the craft they’re passionate about.
“In this particular project, it’s fun to see all their different personalities come out in the art that they make and it’s really exciting,” she said.
Harbott got to lick her own acting chops in the project by playing the principal of the suspicious school.
Kama Sood, the director of one of the films, is a second-year student and Ladner resident planning to return for a third year at the film academy.
Getting the producer’s approval on how to interpret the script, he said his take on Spy School was to embrace the action, all the while keeping things on the funnier side.
He added it’s been an intensive but rewarding process.
“We had a 12-page script and spent about 10 days of filming and then weeks of editing it. The editing and post production of a film is very time consuming,” he said.
Sood said it’s enjoyable to work with student actors because they are open-minded and willing to try anything.
The Delta school district says the Delta Film Academy at the Delta Manor Education Centre is an example of the district’s commitment to offering choice programs that enable students to engage in their passion during the school day.
That’s the case with Sood, who said he looks forward to going to school and having film incorporated into his daily schedule.
The film academy is open to students from grades 8 through 12.
As it is with most explorations in the arts, a continuation within the program means students are constantly expanding and layering on skills they have previously learned and taking further risks within that to develop their craft.
The district also says the program accommodates students of different levels so each has the opportunity to grow and learn, from each other and from the instructors.
The district says that in the acting stream, the students that come back beyond year two are given more challenging scripts to work with and often have more opportunities to work with the production students.
