I had the privilege of viewing three of the festival’s entries in advance, and if those videos are good representations of the content that will be featured tomorrow, the festival will be a success. The Video Production Club is putting on this event, and I am excited that the club, in its first year alone, is not only producing impressive content with its coverage of Aragon sports but is also featuring student content from around the Peninsula.
Generally speaking, I find that videos are made as videos for a reason. Their creators thought a video was the best medium with which to communicate their message. Thus, I will not try to recreate all the videos but merely give some background without botching the artistry too much.
The first video I viewed was “The Graffiti Hide,” and it featured San Mateo High School students travelling down a watery cement passage that has lots of colorful graffiti. As the pack travels further, there are individual shots of various aspects of the journey: their feet, full-body shots, specific graffiti. There is no dialogue in this video, so the music playing throughout gives the video a lot of strong emotion. I was most struck by the way the video was both able to convey the beauty of the journey while maintaining a slightly haunting mood with some of its close-up shots and the music.
I also viewed a video called “Paper Love,” submitted by Capuchino students. This video follows the story of an ostracized girl who has a “hereditary disease,” which results in her wearing a brown paper bag over her face—for life. The video tells the love story between the female protagonist and a boy with whom she gets locked in a classroom. My absolute favorite aspect of this video was how the girl’s emotions were conveyed through the paper bag. Not only did the actress do a great job conveying emotion with her voice, but her paper bag changed from shot to shot—one would have a giant grin, the next a smirk, a scene later she would have big “tears” streaming down her drawn-on face. I thought this was very clever and well done.
The third, and perhaps my favorite video, was called “Squares.” “Squares” was submitted by a Middle College student. In the video, students file into a classroom, and eventually, they each begin doodling something that makes a repetitive sound. As the sounds layer on one another, they come together and create a fun beat. The video ends humorously as one of the “doodlers” becomes the center of attention as she starts her drawing up again. I appreciated the coordination of the classmates; I could tell they were enjoying themselves despite the intense looks of concentration some displayed.
It seems as if all the students who submitted videos put forth great effort and had very creative concepts. So, if you are looking for something to do this Friday, I recommend attending the Peninsula Student Film Festival.
