‘Park Problems’ was recently awarded the ‘Best 6-8’ award in the 2016 Rod Serling Film Festival. John Pilvelis, Art/Gifted Program Teacher at Northeast Bradford School District, served as mentor to the students that created this film. He took some time to gather feedback from his students regarding their experience on this project:
What is your film about? Can you summarize it in a few sentences?
Our film involves a boy who tries to practice his clarinet in the park. Various animals get involved and complicate matters.
How did you come up with the idea for your film?
At first we sat around and brainstormed ideas. We decided to do a story about a girl practicing the flute in her room. As we sculpted our character’s head, we realized that she wasn’t very pretty so we solved that problem by turning her into a boy. As we developed our story we kept adding more and more animals and thought it would make more sense if we set it in a park rather than a room.
Can you talk about your approach to the script and technical elements you used?
We started doing storyboards for our film but soon realized it would work better if we filmed ourselves acting the story out. We watched this short film of us several times which helped us see where the script needed more work. Watching online tutorials also helped regarding the basics of claymation. A lot of trial and error took place as we spent time creating the characters, building props, painting the backdrop and making crazy sounds to use for various sound effects.
Thank you for sharing your film with WSKG! How did you hear about the Rod Serling Film Festival?
Mr. Pilvelis, our art teacher, told us about the Rod Serling Film Festival and talked to us about entering.
Which part of this filmmaking experience did you enjoy the most?
Even though we worked as a team on this film, we each liked different aspects of the filmmaking process.
Kate | I loved doing the audio effects. I liked the challenge of figuring out how to make the different sounds that went into the finished film.
Samantha | I really enjoyed filming the transitions whenever a clay object morphed into something. It was so cool to actually see the finished effects.
Jace | My favorite part was also working on the audio tracks. You never knew how things would sound when mixed into the film. If you had an idea you could try it very quickly and then play it back to see if it worked.
Emily | Everything! I can honestly say that I enjoyed every part of the process while making this film.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
We would like to give a big thanks to Mr. Pilvelis, our art teacher, who worked with us throughout this entire process. He helped us think through the many problems that we faced while making this movie. We would also like to thank everyone else who encouraged us along the way. Claymation takes a long time and requires a lot of patience, but we think it was worth the effort. We’re very proud of our film and hope that people will enjoy it!
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The 2016 Rod Serling Film Festival will be held at the Art Mission & Theater on October 16, 2016 and all winning selections can be found here.