The countdown is on, the projector is warming up, and soon the curtain will be going up on My Fort St. James.
Students from the Fort St. James Secondary School in Andy Sundahl’s Visual Media Arts and Tech classes are finalizing their projects creating short films on their visions of Fort St. James.
The films will be presented at a gala premier at the school on Friday, May 25 from 1 p.m.-2:30 p.m..
The projects were all created through the assistance of the District of Fort St. James, which wanted to facilitate the creation of more tourism-oriented online video for the community.
They purchased some film and video equipment to help give the students a boost and hired consultant Joanne Malo to advise the students and help them through the process.
The Courier has been supporting the projects through the publication of short previews or summaries of a few of the films each week. This is the final installment of the previews, as the gala will take place on the Friday after the print edition of this paper hits the stands.
This week’s films:
FSJ Sports
By Montana Moeller and Dylan Sheehan of Mystic Mountain Films
This team has paired up to do a Sports Centre type short program providing some sports highlights from the past winter season.
Moeller will talk about some skiing and snowboarding from the season, and Sheehan will focus on Midgets hockey.
There will be scenes of sporting events and some interview clips with athletes. The most exciting aspect of this team’s piece is they were the only production team to use “green screen” technology, which allows them to film themselves in front of an actual green screen so they can then superimpose their image onto another background scene.
The pair also have a comedic “Anchorman” style intro shot, with the appropriately campy blazer-clad cast.
They were still, however, on some early editing stages last week, so it will be interesting to see how the final film comes together.
What can you do in Fort St. James?
By Jay Jay Julian and Zach Unruh of Inside the Fire Productions
This production team originally wanted to film the more scenic activities one might consider in the Fort, like hiking Mt. Pope.
However, seasonal constraints limited their ability to really get into any of the summer activities, and it was even a bit late in the year for proper winter sports, which neither are fond of anyhow.
Instead, the pair highlight some of the things people can do in Fort using other means to illustrate the activities, including fleshing the film out with some statistics and images.
My Fort St. James (working title)
By Keifer Steeves and Matthew Calder of The 2 of Us Productions
Fort St. James looks a little different from six inches off the ground.
This pair focussed on their favourite hobbies, with Steeves enjoying working out at the gym, which he is filmed doing, with some stylish editing to give it more impact.
Calder, however, takes a little different perspective in the film, by including film footage taken from his remote-controlled car.
The film takes you on a bumpy ride through his yard in the Sowchea area, and gives you a good sense of the world from an elf’s perspective.
Time lapse footage from Calder’s bedroom window also ads an interesting aspect.