Future Filmmakers... of the Future!

Future Filmmakers of the Future yearbook photo.

Before I go on about current events in my life, I'd like to start with a "brief" reflection of my past. One of the most important periods of my life was High School. It's where I really became involved with filmmaking. I think some of the friends and teachers who helped me out the most deserve a bit of recognition. More importantly I wanted to mention my old film club.

History of the FFF

I started getting more involved in extracurricular activities around my Sophomore year. A few students started a film club that year called the Knights of L.A.M.E. I don't remember what it stood for, but I hated the name. After a few meetings of doing nothing, everyone but myself stopped coming to meetings. Instead of giving up on the group I invited a few of my own friends to the meeting and promoted myself to club president.

My first act as president was to change the club name to the Valley Film Club. It was very generic but we had to focus our creativity on writing a screenplay. Luckily one of my friends, Laura Fast, is a wonderful writer. Maybe too wonderful.

Through the rest of my Sophomore year we had about 6 or 7 members who attended our weekly meetings. On the last meeting of the year we decided what we would do for the next year. Our club sponsor was retiring so we'd need a new one and we needed a new club name. We decided on Future Filmmakers of the Future because it was the name of Valley's original film club. I wasn't going to Valley at the time that club was active so I'd never heard of it. Most people interpreted the name as being redundant but it was supposed to be funny. It means something more along the lines of "the future of future filmmakers" or "future filmmakers from the future".

Senior year we made the club official. I talked to the vice principal and he told me that he could put money in our clubs treasury if we made films for the school. The only one we ever made was a video about all the school's clubs that was played on the student center's televisions during the club fair. I set up a big display for the club fair to promote the Future Filmmakers of the Future with free popcorn, Mardi Gras beads and fake Oscars. We received over 50 signatures and 20 students showed up to the first meeting, which is a great turn out! We ended up being one of the top four clubs at Valley in terms of popularity.

We had two teachers sponsor our club-DeVris and Englemann. Both teachers were very supportive of my career choice and they were so helpful. Englemann taught film appreciation and DeVris taught multimedia applications (making videos and animations). It was an awesome year because we had a meeting every single week no matter what the turn-out, even though we never technically finished any projects.

Projects

The only problems that we faced were finishing what we started. We had amazing and talented members but it was impossible to get everyone together at once and get stuff recorded. In the end the only film we recorded as a group was School Spirit which was based on one of my Hysteria Syndrome comics. Along with being the president of Valley's film club, I also made comics for the school's paper and we based a short funny movie around one of them. However; we had written two 50 page scripts and tried our hardest to finish them but it was impossible. The scripts were great but they were too complicated to shoot when our actors' availability was so tight. Both screenplays were written by Laura Fast.

The first movie we worked on was 'Valley High School Musical'. We started production during my Sophomore year but by the time it was written, there was no time to record the entire thing. The plot pokes fun at 'High School Musical' but also makes fun of Valley and it was hilarious! We rewrote the lyrics to a few songs so instead of finding a musician to play the instrumentals, we could just put the singing to karaoke. Download the VHSM Script Draft.

Over the summer between my Sophomore and Senior year I saw Good Charlotte performing live and my favorite song of theirs was "Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous". Whenever I listen to songs I think about how I could turn them into a music video or film, and this song gave me a great idea for a Future Filmakers of the Future feature film (I love saying that). The idea was to make a modern Robin Hood movie. I emailed Laura the idea so she could start writing the script early. That way when school started we could cast the different parts and start shooting right away. That, however, didn't happen. With the school year being especially busy, it wasn't easy to get everyone in the same place at the same time and get stuff done. Laura came up with some great characters and was able to write a fourty page script. It was to be called 'Robert of the Neighborhood' because supposedly the original Robin Hood stories were called "Robin of the Hood". The main character would be played by Abby LeBlanc. Abby (formerly spelled Abi) is used to playing male roles and she was perfect for the part of Robert. Other characters were Mayor John King (King John), Mariana King (Marian), Sheriff Lewis McArthur (The Sheriff), Tucker the McDonalds Fryer (Fryer Tuck), Scarlet Wilson (Will Scarlet), and it was planned that Guy Gisbourne would be in the sequel. Another great screenplay that'll never be made.

Vaudeville Films

Sure we didn't finish any feature length movies in the Future Filmmakers of the Future, but that doesn't mean we didn't film anything! Towards the end of my Senior year, Abby LeBlanc and I decided to branch off and make some short films of our own. We had become big fans of Charlie Chaplin, so we wrote our own Chaplin script (Abby wrote it, I directed) and planned on filming it with Abby as the Tramp. We figured that since we are starting our own film careers, we should start by making a movie much like the first movies ever made in the early 1900s so our talent would evolve just as the film industry had. We called our little production company Vaudeville Films, a title which you will only see in the credits of two of my short films because when I left for college, Abby and I parted ways. Abby never got the chance to play the Tramp in our Chaplin-esque film, 'A Summers Day', because she wasn't able to come to the shoot. I took her place instead. We intended on reshooting with her as Chaplin but we weren't able to because of time restraints. The other Vaudeville Film didn't involve Abby. 'Probed' is one of my favorite films that I've made so far. It is too long to put on YouTube but when I find a way to post it on my blog, I will! For now, here is Abby and I's Chaplin film, 'A Summer's Day':