MAP seniors working hard on final projects

From abuse to murder to other various forms of horror stories, the many senior Media Arts Program projects can be overwhelmingly intense and dark. As a change of pace, senior Kate Bossi and her group wanted to create an emotional project that would leave the audience feeling “nostalgic and happy.”

Her group is telling the story of two sisters and the changes in their relationship as they age.

“We hope to create a project that everyone can relate to, even if you don't have any siblings,” Bossi said.

Bossi and her group, which includes seniors Eryn Lee, Riley Carter, Quinn Dozier and Sadhana Vadrevu, have been busy working and are looking to cast the actors and finalize the script. They have also found ways to integrate poems into every act of the film, fellow group member senior Eryn Lee said.  

In the upcoming weeks, senior MAP students will be able to show off the different skills that they have learned over their experiences in the program in a year-long project due in late April.

“It’s essentially the culminating project of the entire program, and after years of being trained in different skills and having projects that are targeted and very short, generally a few weeks,” said Jason Friend, who teaches AP Language and Composition and is also Media Arts teacher. “It’s a chance for MAP seniors to use their skills for a project that they’re very passionate about in a big scale.”

Throughout the first semester, seniors pitched their project ideas and spent most of the time in the pre-production phase. Second semester is used to actually film, edit and complete the projects.

While Bossi and her group are making a fictional film about siblings, senior Alec Lindeman and his group decided to create a mockumentary that follows a high school student on his journey to become a successful comedian.

“I personally like this project because there were very few restrictions on what we could make,” Lindeman said.

Originally suggested by former MAP students who continued their media arts career in college, the project is a great platform for students to make their own creations and to showcase the best of their four years in MAP.

Making this film is a great way for students to get a taste of what media arts projects will possibly be like later on in college.

“We asked the students early on in the program what they thought was missing and several of them mentioned that they never felt they had a chance to do the thing they really were most passionate about,” Friend said. “Students wanted to use both their academic knowledge and their media knowledge in a more open and big way.”

The projects usually require students to learn new skills and acquire knowledge that they had not have before.

“It’s a really challenging project and it is a project that is incredibly fun for students, but I think after a while they will run into all these creative roadblocks,” Friend said. “By the end of the year, though, when we survey students on what they thought of it, we get overwhelmingly positive responses.”

Seniors are eager to have their works compete for awards in “SMASH’N,” an annual MAP awards show in May that is their version of the Oscars. The students will also get the chance to flesh out their successes and failures of the work they have done throughout the year.

“I'm really excited about this project because I'm passionate about editing and I love my group members,” Bossi said. “It's a really rewarding feeling to see a project like this all come together.”