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Mount Carmel’s WMCA original film wows audience
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By Christine Bordelon
Photo courtesy of Mount Carmel Academy
“Face the Melody,” an original film written, directed, filmed and edited by Mount Carmel Academy students involved in the school’s WMCA club, recently won the “Audience Award” for “Best Short Film” at Film Prize Junior, a high school film festival for students from across Louisiana.
The festival, the high school offshoot of the Film Prize foundation’s Louisiana Film Prize, is open to Louisiana high schoolers ages 14-18. It encourages students to participate in the “multidisciplinary art form of filmmaking and creative entrepreneurship.”
Ryan Naquin, co-moderator of WMCA club with Javier Rodriguez, said it was a blessing to win the audience award. WMCA generally produces a 10-minute, in-house weekly news broadcast on Fridays, but students this year wanted to expand their responsibilities and make a short film for a competition, just like other clubs at school.
“Our kids worked really hard, and I think they made a really impressive film,” he said. “Their work amazed me.”
New to the festival
Naquin said the festival reached out to high schools statewide for the 2020 event. The basic requirement was to shoot a 10-minute film in Louisiana.
“From the first writing session to recording to the last edit, it’s all the students’ work,” he said.
WMCA students began writing in September with student Ava Hellstern conceiving the overall idea. (Her dad suggested a plotline similar to something in “The Twilight Zone.”)
“It was then that we came up with the idea of a girl who gets trapped in a musical on her first day of school,” Hellstern said. “It is light-hearted and fun. It is a story where a girl is nervous for her first day of school as a new student, and it all goes wrong.”
The filming was completed in two days during Thanksgiving break with the help of 25 students and six teachers. Hellstern said they chose their high school a setting, since it was familiar to all actors and crew.
Naquin said students with musical parts recorded themselves singing prior to Thanksgiving break, and vocals were mixed with crowd vocals.
Olivia Hays mostly directed and edited it (in about two weeks).
“We were working with two different cameras that the school provided,” Hays said. “Once I had organized each scene and selected the best footage, I worked on perfecting (over late nights for several weeks). I was constantly at the computer watching the film over and over trying to find every tiny detail that could be fixed, every frame that was discolored, every microphone mishap, every offbeat song. … I could always find something that could be done better.”
The completed film, originally 15 minutes, was edited to 12 then to 10 minutes to meet contest rules. It was finished in December.
“The team at MCA is nothing like I’ve ever been a part of before,” Naquin said. “Putting together a production can be difficult, but the entire MCA team helped us in every way.”
MCA students who participated were overjoyed at their recognition.
“Winning this award meant that out of all the people that watched ‘all’ of the films entered they thought ours was the best,” Hays said, who said most club members had never worked on a film and just thought it would be fun. It was extremely rewarding. … Mr. Naquin told us how great he thought the film was and believed in us from the start. It really excites me to think that people around the world watched our film and thought, ‘Yeah this is the film we want to win.’ It really just gave everyone a bit more confidence and a new fire to continue to create.”
Caroline Baehr, who played Poppy, said the WMCA had never created a film before, which made the recognition even more special.
“It truly shows how much support we had from not only the Mount Carmel community but also from people we may not even know who were simply impressed by our creativity,” Baehr said. “This award is an incredible honor, and it really shows how far we can go if we work hard and work together!”
The 2020 edition of Film Prize Junior broke the previous records, with 24 films submitted from 15 schools. Over 900 votes were cast nationwide – a record for the competition – to determine the Audience Choice Award.
“We were unbelievably impressed by the student filmmakers this year,” said Colby Doler, a Film Prize Junior organizer. “These students surpassed our submission record during an unprecedented time, as they’ve been engaging in distance learning due to COVID-19. (With) higher voter turnout than ever before for the festival … even more people were able to see these fantastic films from the next generation of filmmakers.”
WMCA members earned a certificate that was presented virtually, and Film Prize Jr. awarded Mount Carmel Academy a $2,500 grant for video-related equipment, $500 to Naquin and $500 for a cast party.
To view a long version of WMCA’s award-winning film, go to:
shorturl.at/tBNT1.Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].