Short Film Competition
Short Film Competition
Budding Belhaven film directors make their mark!
Belhaven students always step up to be challenged and the short film competition was a perfect example of this. It was also a wonderful example of Belhaven’s commitment to having a digital and creative focus towards learning.
I was really impressed with the wide range of offerings submitted and it was an incredibly difficult decision to pick an overall winner.
When attempting to select a winner, I was looking for a clear arc in the story being presented, with a sense of theme, character and vision. Students used a variety of live acting (often featuring wonderful family members as accompanying actors) and also the very impressive stop motion animation format; that requires immense focus, patience and creative flair!
Senior Entries
We had a range of themes and directing choices in this category. Kit Robson’s animation, featuring a busy street and a banana man buying food, had great focus and he expertly created a bustling street scene. Caroline Brodie, also used stop motion animation, creating a brilliant scene of her characters escaping a fiery dragon. Pétronille Celier used ‘Happy’ by Pharrell in her charming ‘Morning’ short film, with very professional credits at the end. Jack Dalrymple, created an impressive and epic Star Wars convention/ airport -style security film. It had impressive scene transitions and there was precision with the attention to detail in this film. Taking a slightly different departure into the world of fantasy, we had a wonderful theatrical offering from Grace Carrick-Buchanan. A real family affair with witches, serpent attacks and possibly murder?
Junior Entries
Our younger Belhaven students more than stepped up to the mark, with a variety of scenes that offered a glimpse into the imaginations and creative talents of our juniors.
William Struthers, created remarkable sound effects of a very believable gym workout and he also featured a motorbike entrance! Jack Grant created a charming animation featuring a puppy, a duck and an aeroplane!
Alexander Gray-Cheape worked creatively using photography and recorded footage with captions. This was very effective and I thoroughly enjoyed the skiing and future Belhavian, Anastasia Gray-Cheape’s cameo. Another family offering was the Smyly’s, who used their acting skills to explore the scenario of a convincingly grumpy hotelier, two wonderful moustaches, a barking dog and mysterious undertones. Elita Atkins created a charming penguin story, featuring a campervan and a penguin reunited with their friends. The Dewars presented a wonderful woodland re-enactment of ‘We’re all going on a bear hunt.’ Ottie Ogilvie set our taste buds alight with a delicious film of a banoffee syrup ice-cream dessert! How could we escape Sam Jack and his epic journey to get to school, complete with combat gear and jumping across a waterfall! The Andrews created a really interesting slow motion trampoline experience, showing just how cold and icy Scotland can be!
The winner was Holly Hutchison, who managed to create a clear and well developed story in ‘An Adventure’ featuring snow drops, snow angels, Holly skiing and a comic turn from a Shark. It was also the fact that Holly sang and played to accompany her own piece that ultimately led to her being crowned the winner.
Well done to all the Belhaven film directors. Keep being digitally creative!
