On a busy December Monday, the Upper School poured out of its Day 4 Collection as clubs scrambled to assemble and students scrolled through their emails to check for any updates. In the midst of old clubs, with experienced club heads and returning participants, a new club gathered for their first meeting.

New club heads Arturo Guallar-Blasco (‘23) and Carson Freeman (‘23) addressed an eager turn-out of over 20 students, a majority of whom were members of the class of 2023. Freeman is an experienced photographer with his own business, and his co-club head, Arturo, is a talented student with experience in the digital field. The two club heads explained that the main goal of the film-making club will be to collaboratively create two short films by the end of the school year.

To get things started, Arturo and Carson divided the room into three groups: writers, actors, and editors, based on the interest of each member. A large portion of the room turned out to be interested in acting, which Carson began to address alongside the writing team. Anyone involved with the post-production aspect of films (essentially the group’s prospective editors) left with Arturo to discuss the design and editing process

“We’re hoping to have access to multiple programs that can help us make this process as smooth as possible,” explained Arturo. “We’re going to need content editors, visual artists, and people who can work with our audio.”

While he acknowledges that action shots would be ambitious to use with novice editors, the tech-savvy freshman hopes the group will be able to get the hang of 2D and 3D camera tracking in time to edit the first film.

Back in the photo room, the remaining students started brainstorming ideas for the first script and how to turn it into a motion picture. While many concepts were suggested and discussed, most of the room agreed that they would like to undertake a comedy. Several club members thought this would be a good starting idea and that more serious topics should be saved for the second film.

“Carson and I have been trying to get this club approved since the first day of school,” admitted Guallar-Blasco. “We’ve been hoping to create something like this since middle school, and are very happy it’s finally working out now that we have access to the materials to make it possible.”

Despite the large numbers of interested students, Carson and Arturo still hope to attract more people.

“I hope more upperclassmen will be open to joining,” said Carson. “A majority of our members are freshmen, and as a freshman, I can say that they are annoying as hell.”

When most of the room’s faces turned bitter, he assured his classmates that this was a joke and that he appreciated how many of them came to the club’s interest meeting.

With the club having a successful first meeting, the Upper School will now have to wait and see where the club goes and how their final products turn out.