By Michael Todd
Staff Writer
Mira Costa’s cinematic arts program hosted a film screening to showcase films from students around the world on Friday in the multi purpose room.
The screening is an annual event for the Costa cinematic arts program. It will showcase student’s short films that they have been working on for up to four months. The screening will be open to the public and the films will vary in their topics depending on the student’s choice.
“The films are about all different kinds of things,” cinematic arts teacher Michael Hernandez said. “They’re all very different from green screens to documentaries that my students made in Cuba. We also screen animation projects.”
The cinematic arts program won Story of the Year from the Academy of Scholastic Broadcasting in 2013. The program received second place for broadcast news story of the year and sports story of the year from the National Scholastic Press Association in the same year.
“It’s great that our program has won so many awards in recent years,” freshman media arts student Baker Harrington said. “It shows the high standards that we try to have in the class.”
The screening allows anyone to submit a film for showing. A panel of judges filters through the films that are submitted to choose which ones will be showcased. Judges will give awards to the films shown including best film.
“Many of the projects we are screening are near professional quality,” Hernandez said. “It’s not like what you would typically find in your class when your teacher says make a video.”
Students make all content decisions which will show their opinions and views, Hernandez said. The project is not mandatory for students in the class and is not worth a grade.
“All the films being shown will have a lot of time and effort put into them,” Harrington said. “Even the ones from out of our school will be very good as well.”
The program had another film screening on May 13 at Costa with different schools from around the south bay area such as Redondo and Palos Verdes High School. This will be the final screening of the year.
“Videos are the new books,” Hernandez said. “You think about where everybody gets ideas, inspiration, and information from, it’s videos.”
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