Pakūranga College Media Studies teacher, Sarah Side, is celebrating after two documentaries produced by students in her Year 13 Media Studies class were named semi-finalists in the documentary category of the youth filmmaking competition, OnScreen.
“This class has been an absolute pleasure to teach. It’s full of amazing talent, and the standard of work produced for NCEA assessments was of such a high calibre that I encouraged students to submit their work to the OnScreen competition.
“To have two groups named as documentary semi-finalists, especially in a field where only 10 entries nationwide were shortlisted, is just fantastic.”
One of the films to make it to the semi-finals is Snared, by Blake Elliott, Max Hewin, and Lily Pearce.
The documentary explores the impact of the fishing industry in the Hauraki Gulf. The group wanted to create a film that triggered emotions, and they have certainly done just that, with a balanced piece canvassing opinions from industry representatives, politicians, and scientists.
One of the most challenging areas of producing the film was finding the right people to talk to.
“At the start of the project we spent a lot of time sending emails and waiting for responses,” says Lily. “Often our initial contact wasn’t able to interview but could refer us to someone who could sit down to talk with us. It was a bit of a waiting game at times, but we used that time to hone our interview questions and make sure our pre-production work was to a high standard.”
Blake says, “We are often asked how we managed to secure an interview with Chlöe Swarbrick, but she was fantastic and keen to make time to talk to us. You miss 100 percent of the opportunities you don’t try for, so you just have to remember that it doesn’t hurt to ask.”
The second challenge for the group was filming b-roll, which required water-proofing their camera equipment and heading to Goat Island Marine Reserve to film in the freezing waters in the middle of July.
Max recalls, “We had a mishap with one of the small cameras, which sank to the bottom, and trying to get a variety of different shots was tricky as well. But we managed to get enough good footage for a seven-minute film by visiting a number of different locations.”
One element of the film the trio is especially proud of is the score, an original piece written by Max. They say, “Writing the score myself helped us to feel that the film was truly ours.”
The group were very excited to be named OnScreen documentary semi-finalists and have taken advantage of the mentorship offered to students, submitting a section of Snared to experts for review.
“It was great to have unbiased feedback from someone in the film industry about the technical aspects of our filming and how we can improve moving forward,” says Blake.
The group is looking forward to meeting other finalists and film professionals at the awards night on Wednesday 28 October.
The other film to make the top 10 is Hapunan, by Jiah Maharaj, Raya Peralta, and Eunice Hou. The seven-minute film focuses on a Filipino eatery of the same name.
The group selected the topic for their documentary because they wanted something that connected with their diverse Asian heritages.
“We all come from different parts of Asia,” explains Jiah. “And when you are away from home one of the best ways to reconnect with your culture is to eat the food.”
“Hapunan fills that need for many Filipinos, and knowing the owners was also very helpful,” says Raya. “They were so generous with their time and very encouraging.”
The group are genuine friends who have enjoyed working together on school media studies assignments for the past two years.
“We have a connection as friends first, which allows us to have open communication,” says Jiah.
“We all have different areas of expertise that work well together,” adds Raya. “Eunice is a master with the camera and editing; she frames such a good shot.
“Jiah and I are good at brainstorming ideas and producing, which requires a lot of wrangling sometimes to get everything and everyone we need organised.
According to the group the most rewarding part of the documentary was simply finishing it, although there have been other rewards.
From the 10 documentary semi-finalists, Hapunan, has been named as one of two national finalists, with the national winner to be announced at a special screening on 28 October.
“We were waiting and waiting for the finals announcement,” recalls Raya. “Refreshing the web page constantly, and then we had an email from our teacher to say we’d made it to the national documentary finals, with one other film. I couldn’t stop smiling the whole day.”
Jiah’s reaction was a little different. “I ran to find my sister and then I burst into tears. It was so overwhelming.”
The group also received one of three special mentions for a promotional poster designed by Raya to accompany the entry.
“That was an optional extra, but it was fun to put our names on a theatrical release-style poster, and it was awesome to receive a special mention for it.”
Best of luck to both groups for the finals; we are so proud of this fantastic achievement!
Trailers for both films can be viewed below, with the full documentaries released after the awards night.
