In Autumn 2013 I was asked to teach a film acting class for the Lake County branch of Spotlight Youth Theater. I jumped at the opportunity and quickly realized what a great opportunity it was for me as a filmmaker–not only could I teach students how to act naturally in front of a camera, but I could also create a fully realized short film in the process.
The best part about making a film in a class setting? You have a captive group of actors and crew. Once a week for two hours in the evening we practiced and shot my film, and it came together much better than I had expected. Because we were limited to a single class room and a young cast, I had to get creative with the screenplay. I took an existing script of mine set in a contemporary high school classroom and transposed it to a post apocalyptic one, located in a world of dark caverns. The film was originally titled Joy Vs. Happiness, but after adding some supernatural elements, I changed the title to Joy and the Shadow. Because of the film’s dark environments, all we really needed for a set were some black backdrops and a couple of old film lights. The result was fairly stark and impressionistic, and we went with bright costumes to compliment the high contrast look. I also added some simple cut out photo elements in post to make the film’s world a little more believable.
Issues arose: students passing in the hallway next to the classroom would talk, ruining takes, and music from the dance class next door polluted about half of the dialog track–I had to re-dub most of the film with the students later. We also ran short on class time, and the last couple class sessions were rushed. We showed a rough cut to the parents on the last night of class, and now, almost three years later, the film is finally finished.
Joy and the Shadow was a joy to create. It was my first legitimate short film after graduating film school and a great opportunity to flex my creative muscles and tell a story that dealt with Christian themes of faith and joy. I’ve worked on two more projects with the same group since, which you can read about here and here.