For two weeks in March, the entire Lawrence Academy community shifts its attention from the regular academic routine to intensive courses of study that are dedicated to experiential learning. In small groups of eight to sixteen, students and teachers plunge together into the world outside the classroom (LA-Website).
Production continues on the horror films coming out of Waters House. The dorm was transformed into a movie set for much of the time. The make-up artist is here today and the "blood" is flowing.
Our movie production crew has been very busy in the last 2.5 days! They visited a special effects studio in Woburn, MA on Monday. Ben Bornstein owns Creative Initiative: Make-up and Effects Studio. He has worked on movies like Zookeeper, The Fighter, The Departed and TV shows like Desperate Housewives and CSI: Las Vegas.
On Tuesday the group spent all day working on their movie scripts. Yes, that's plural - there will be TWO movies this year! This group actually did work at the Winterim meetings that we had during MX this past term. They had already brainstormed their story lines and the faculty leaders prepped the scripts with a basic template. They were due to start filming today, but after a read through of their scripts in Waters House they realized they needed some final touches.
Also, two movie producers, Russ and Christy met with the group today and plan to be with the group through next week. Russ Jaquith of Jaquith Productions is from California. He has worked with our group in the past and his professional expertise has proven to be extremely helpful.
In order to inspire their work in writing and filming, the group has watched portions of a thriller movie, "The Ring." Faculty leader, Nate Cabot, says it is a suspense thriller with excellent filming techniques, he hopes the students will try to use in their films. This afternoon the group will be planning out their production schedule and hopefully they will not be delayed due to the impending snow storm we might have tomorrow.
It's the weekend before Lawrence Academy students and faculty set out to begin their 2013 Winterim adventures. Many students remain on-campus to create various art and media projects or engage in other experiential learning activities (i.e. chess, board game design, working with kids at Headstart, learning yoga and etc.)
Last year a group wrote a song and created a music video named "YOLO (Phone in the Piano)." Check out their finished product on the LA Winterim YouTube Channel. Another group created a horror film entitled, "Nurder," also available to view on YouTube. For 2013, a new set of students has joined the Winterim project aptly named, Return of The Horror, The Horror. We hope to view another great example of what students can create in two weeks with a little imagination, some professional training, and a collaborative effort!
To see more of the Winterim 2012 projects view this quick slide show set to the song "Fishbowl," from the album Orange (available on iTunes) written and produced by The Cranks.
