Seniors Shreya Sheel and Caroline Jens stepped into the control room in the Media Arts building one afternoon in January. The complete stillness of the room enveloped them. They held their breath as a rush of adrenaline overtook them, eagerly waiting for their actor, senior Rotem Shaked, to begin speaking.
They locked their eyes on Shaked; as soon as he began to recite his lines flawlessly, the two girls exhaled. The hours they had spent writing the script for their information video were finally coming to fruition.
This scene was part of their senior project for the Media Arts Program (MAP). It is an open-ended, year-long project where students apply what they have learned in the past three years of MAP. All seniors in the MAP program must complete a senior project.
This project was created after graduating seniors, during a focus group meeting, remarked that they would have liked to have had time to work on a passion project that was free from the strict constraints of their other assigned projects.
After taking the seniors’ remarks into consideration, the MAP teachers researched how colleges conducted their senior projects. Most colleges have a 15 to 20-minute constraint on their projects, so teachers decided to give the MAP senior project a 10-minute limit as a way to build up to creating longer media projects.
“People who don’t work in the field [may ask], ‘Why would you need a whole year to work on something that is 10 minutes?’ but I think the thing to understand is that when you’re doing media, [to create] 10 quality minutes is actually a time intensive process,” English teacher Jason Friend said.
During first semester, MAP seniors must work on multiple other MAP projects, such as a Shark Tank funding project. In general, they use first semester as time to complete their pre-production work. During second semester, they focus on the media production of their senior project.
Additionally, for the first time ever, seniors have to take a Senior Media Arts Lab (MAP Lab) class this year during sixth period. This period is meant to give seniors time to work on their senior projects and any other projects assigned to them by their History or English teachers. The class is blended which means one sixth block period of the week is optional and the other is mandatory. English teacher Jason Friend and media teacher Joel Tarbox run the class period.
One senior project group comprises of seniors Karen Chen, Eleni Spirakis, Stephanie Hayes, Savannah Green, Sheel and Jens. They are creating a humorous informational video on the school’s MAP program.
Because the girls think many incoming students have misconceptions about the program, such as the belief that MAP is an easier alternative to regular courses, the group hopes that its video can be used to “break barriers” at introductory nights, such as Electives Night. They also hope that the video can be on the MAP website to provide an introduction to the program.
“I think [MAP is] so unique that a speech at Electives Night can’t describe it,” Sheel said. “I don’t think [the program’s resources] are emphasized enough when people are introduced to it.”
The video will feature Shaked reciting facts while animations that support what he is saying, hover above him. At times, Shaked will also talk over more meaningful animations.
“We [were] very excited [when we came up with the project] because it was different, but still just as ambitious as a normal documentary or fictional film,” Chen said.
The project contains elements of everything students are exposed to in MAP: animation, film, screenwriting and graphic design. Because this senior project is more time-consuming than the average one, their group is slightly larger than others to make sure that it can be completed on time.
Hayes and Chen are working on graphics, Sheel and Jens on screenwriting and Spirakis and Green on animation. Everyone takes part in filming; and as the project nears an end in late March/early April, everyone will contribute to the editing process. The project is due on April 13.
Although each group member knew that she would not the best at creating all the aspects of the video, Sheel said, “it’s become our challenge to learn and make it the best project we can.”
To complete the script, Sheel and Jens conducted extensive interviews with every MAP teacher to make sure the video accurately portrayed each class.
“It’s been nice talking to all the teachers, but it’s also been like ‘Wow, we have to include all these ideas in a 10-minute film,’” Sheel said. “We also want to make it humorous, so have to find that balance between humor and accuracy.”
The group did all its filming at the school using the SHSTV equipment since the SHSTV set worked well with their video and had a green screen they could use. Because the project was so extensive, the group had to make the most out of all their senior MAP lab days, including optional filming days.
Although the group has faced some setbacks while working on the project, Sheel said it has allowed for them all to not only learn new skills and practice teamwork, but also to thoroughly reflect on their experiences in MAP. Practicing these “soft skills,” she said, have been an invaluable part of her four years in MAP.
“The whole mantra of MAP is collaboration and teamwork, and both are so important after high school," Sheel said. "We are going to have to work in teams a lot and things aren’t always going to go your way."