FRIENDS MAKING FILMS “Quiet on the set! Roll! Slate! And… action!” These are some of my favorite words to say. I have been producing my own videos since primary school, actually ever since I’ve been able to hold a video camera. During my Lower and Middle School years, whenever given the choice, I opted for video as the medium for my school projects. Most of these productions featured me as a news anchor. One year, when I was in Texas over the holiday break, I used my grandfather’s university office and played a university professor helping a student with his work. The upside of the first Covid confinement was that it gave me the opportunity to try my hand at longer films. As most people were at home during the summer of 2020, bored and looking for something to do, it was the perfect occasion for me and my friends to have a crack at it. Claire Gallet, Première, had been working on a film script about a hacker, which we decided to bring to the screen. We recruited current and former
Lycée students as our cast and crew to produce an hour-long feature. Everyone had an incredible time, and they were all hungry for more. So we subsequently produced a 30-minute short film about an executive who is betrayed and must fight to regain what is his during the summer of 2021. Our cast and crew includes Première students Luc Denissel and Gabriel Esteve-Franco as well as Secondes Galadriel Baron (Ecole Diagonale), Margita Fabianke, Audrey Hart-Da Silva (Ermitage), Lili Lundy, Vanisha Mishra, Gioia and Ilay Seynaeve (NL), and Maya Vardanyan. Even though a few of these students are no longer at the Lycée, our film projects still bring us together. One day we hope to submit a short to a film festival. While I am mostly self-taught, I have learned a lot about directing, filming, and producing thanks to YouTube and on-line articles. There’s a wealth of knowledge right there at
your fingertips. Claire and I have made the most progress in logistics and organizing. It’s quite complicated to get a film set running! But I know I still have a lot to learn. Little things matter when you are making a film -- some
well-positioned 60€ lights can make a world of difference, to say nothing of decent mikes. You can work around bad video, but bad audio will break a film! I plan to major in engineering and minor in film in university. The link between the two fields isn’t obvious, but I can’t ever see myself ever abandoning film, even if I am simply working on passion projects on the side. We are now planning on making two films, a 10-15 minute coming of age story about someone with major anxiety and a fun 30-minute short about someone who gets sweptup into organized crime. The most amazing thing about our films is not the end-product, but the experiences the cast and crew share and the talent everyone brings to the table. From Vanisha’s acting to Maya’s artistic input, and from Galadriel’s tireless assistance to Claire’s perceptive screenwriting, everyone contributes in a meaningful way and the final result is better because of it. Moreover, we have a great time filming even during some of the more difficult scenes! Dorian Echasseriau, Seconde
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