On Friday April 5, Hamburg Area High School hosted its first ever 14 Hour Film Festival. The film festival started at 7:30 am and ended at 9:30 pm Friday afternoon. Participates were students of all ages from freshman to seniors. Students needed to select a genre, some of them including romcom, horror, comedy, and so many more. After receiving the genre they are assigned students must plot, plan, film, and edit their films. Their short films must include dialogue, character names, after all of that hardwork students must submit their films.
Mrs. Eshbach, HAHS video communications teacher and morning announcements director. Created the event and had previously hosted a 24 hour film festival at her prior school. She explained, “The 24 hour was a all night film festival. The reason it was so long was due to the technology not being as advanced.” HAHS is lucky enough to have a 14 hour film fest, with the technology we have. Mrs. Eshbach explained that there were 3 groups that participated in the festival, each which created their own film. Next year Mrs. Eshbach is hoping to plan another festival, 12 hours due to students finishing so quickly.
Koa Binder a freshman at HAHS participated in the film fest with a group of four: Dakota Schneider, Chase Brodhead, Hailee Riggeal. Her group created a horror movie. Koa explained that, “For our film, we decided to take it towards a found footage kind of route with a plot involving somewhat of a cult. We took inspiration from movies like The Craft and the Blair Witch Project.” Koa also said she would do the festival again and recommends it to other students at HAHS.
