Seniors in Ms. Herrera’s Film Analysis class will present their final products on Thursday, May 25, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm in the Eagle Theater. The Talon interviewed the directors of three films to learn more.

Evan Marshall and Nathan Mesel

“Hush”

Seniors Evan Marshall and Nathan Mesel’s film, “Hush,” is a psychological thriller in which a mysterious figure follows a group of friends on their way home from the beach. The two had worked together on projects in previous classes and wanted to create something unique that would leave a haunting impression on the audience.

“I’ve always had a fascination with horror movies and anything scary,” Nathan said. “The first scene that really kind inspired this story was when I was walking home from my friend’s house at one in the morning… There were no lights on and I was in the middle of a dark street and I had to use my phone as a flashlight, and I was terrified. I thought ‘I really want to have this moment in a movie.’”

Although their film is technically considered to be a horror film, they left a few comedic details throughout the story. As an homage to their friends in marching band, Evan and Nathan have included several inside jokes and nicknames that students in the performing arts department will be able to identify. They even chose to recruit band kids as actors in their film.

“That was something we sort of felt would be really cheeky and something that most people won’t really pick up on,” Nathan said. “The band kids [watching] would be like ‘wait a second, I recognize those names. Oh my god, they did that!’ and you know, have a little laugh at it.”

Moe Saha

“I Broke It”

Senior Moe Saha originally planned on making a documentary for her film project, but decided to instead make a comedy called “I Broke It,” about a man who injures a… certain body part before going on a date.

“I had a dream about [my film plot] and thought it would be super funny,” Moe said. “I love those kind of movies, and I know comedy is really really hard to pull off so I wasn’t going to risk it, but I gave this idea to Mrs. Herrera and she loved it.”

While the premise of her film may seem immature, Moe wants to leave the audience feeling happy and amused by her film. Although she wasn’t originally sure about her idea at the start of the process, she hopes that her hard work and effort will come through and be apparent to viewers.

“I just really like making people laugh,” Moe said. “If I want to be remembered one way at this school, it will be someone who can make people happy and someone who can make people laugh, even if it’s doing dumb stuff like this.”

Jacqueline Lopez

“That Moment”

It took senior Jacqueline Lopez some time to decide on what to make her movie about, but knew she wanted to make her film easily relatable for the audience. Eventually she thought of the idea for her comedic film, “That Moment.” It’s a comedy that involves a real estate agent running into a precarious situation in a bathroom just before an open house — running out of toilet paper.

“My initial [thought] was a love story, but I didn’t have a good idea,” Jacqueline said. “That’s when I started thinking of doing something relatable. Usually you don’t see a video about somebody running out of toilet paper because it’s like an unspoken moment.”

Jacqueline drew from her interest in music and singing to inspire her editing process. While she didn’t know how to film prior to taking Film Analysis, she had a basic understanding of editing from creating her own music videos for her songs.

“It’s the editing that makes [each film] artistic and different,” Jacqueline said. “I was able to use sound effects and funny music like ‘Careless Whisper’ and the ‘Rocky’ theme song to make [“That Moment”] funny visually and just in general… My knowledge of music and editing helped a lot with understanding moods in film and what works and what doesn’t.”