A point guard and a cyborg would never be in the same film screening, right? Wrong. If you were sitting in the audience of the 2023 Franklin Film Festival, presented by video production teacher Adam Souza (he/him), you would see both of these as well as many more obscure characters and stories. This festival has happened twice every year since 2015, once in the winter and again in the spring. Franklin Film School students, who are students in the film and video production program, work for an entire semester to create a film project that will be shown at one of the two festival showings.
This year, students in the advanced film classes have worked to create a “mockumentary,” a fictional documentary about any topic they choose. Souza assigned both the Documentary and Narrative Filmmaking classes the same final assignment, saying that he did that so he could “get caught up on the curriculum for those courses.” Each student is paired up with a partner in their class to create a joint project, so in all, there are 18 finalized films between the two classes.
One of these films, titled “Mockumentary: A Film,” was written and created by junior Tallulah Hutchinson (she/her) and senior Henry Takiguchi (he/him). The pair is in the Documentary Filmmaking class, where they began the process of brainstorming, researching, and writing before moving on to pre-production. The two of them drew inspiration from the assignment’s title “mockumentary” alongside the development of the central character, Jeb, and the jokes they wanted to tell through their film. “I was just thinking about how it was funny that we had an assignment to make a mockumentary in Documentary class, and I thought it would be funny to [reference the title in the assignment],” said Hutchinson. The film is in documentary format, following Jeb, a fictional student obsessed with documentaries in Souza’s Documentary Filmmaking class who is infuriated by the mockumentary assignment. Jeb is played by Takiguchi, who goes into a flurry of curses and falls on the floor upon hearing the assignment, which classmate Noah Woodbury found very funny to watch happen in person. Takiguchi and Souza both committed to their roles, with Takiguchi sliding down two flights of stairs and Souza pulling a fake knife on his student.
One student, Moses Peet (he/him), took a less humorous approach to the assignment and decided to make a feature film entitled “Sky’s the Limit” about a point guard on the Franklin Men’s Basketball Team, junior Giovanni Lavert. Peet says he drew inspiration from “[Lavert’s] story and all the hard work the [men’s] basketball team puts in.” The general premise of the film was about how much work Lavert puts into his basketball career, and how he sets realistic expectations for himself while still knowing that the sky’s the limit. The film utilized both action shots with music as well as interviews with Lavert to tell this story.
A different method from both the comedic and feature films already discussed is present in “AI Awakening” created by Noah Woodbury and Moss Domenico, which has a comedic outlook on a science fiction premise. The film centers around a man named Bill Babanin, played by Cian McKeown, and his son Ian, played by Enzo Domenico. In the film, Babanin had been injured in a work accident where his brain was damaged, causing it to be partially replaced with artificial intelligence. The film was made in a documentary style, as Domenico played a reporter interviewing and filming Babanin after the accident. The filmmakers said, “[We] were inspired by thriller and dystopian ideas and just kept building onto the story until we were happy with it.” Domenico and Woodbury’s goal was to do something with a lot of fictional elements so they could “maximize the amount of creativity [they] could tap into.”
“Every year I’m impressed with what my students come up with,” says Souza. “I’m just creating an environment for them to be creative and be vulnerable and tell stories they want to tell.” Souza understands how difficult it can be to create a film within the constraints of the school system, but is very proud of each student and is glad to present their work at the film screening.
Another screening that the Franklin Film School will participate in is the Best of PPS Film Festival which screens at the Hollywood Theater in May. Students from all over the district will be chosen to participate in the screening. Films are selected by industry judges, ranging from freelance video producers in Portland to Hollywood screenwriters. The chosen films are then put up for awards like Best Narrative, Best Documentary, and a miscellaneous award.
Students in the film program should be appreciated and commended for their hard work throughout the year and the wonderful films they produced for their mockumentary assignment. I did not mention every film in this article, I simply did not have enough room, and so, I urge you to watch the films on your own at franklinfilmschool.com or on youtube at @franklinfilmschool2621 and explore the films on your own.