Every Fifteen Minutes

Wednesday was Every Fifteen Minutes at Royal High School. This program happens at Royal once every two years, as Simi High receives the treatment every other year. I volunteered to be on the film crew for the event. Here is what happens: A huge car accident is staged in front of the entire Junior and Senior class at the school. Here is the scenario: a drunk driver hits and kills other people, resulting in extreme sorrow and emotion. Twenty one students walked around school, representing students killed by an alcohol related accident. The job of the film crew was to capture the entire event and be ready to premiere the next day at a special assembly. So begins.

Filming the crash scene was a lot of fun. I was in charge of the master shot, meaning my camera was on a tripod and never left it. People who attended the event most likely saw me, as I stood right in the center probably blocking many peoples views. Sorry all who I blocked, it was my job.

So the film crew, at least some of us, stayed up all night long editing this bad boy. We finished at probably 9 am. I had a whole lot of fun though, Royal High School in the middle of the night is a whole different world. When we were finished editing our particular segments or just waiting for iMovie to extract audio (arg), we decided to run like mad men all over campus. Some of us played a mad game of hide and go seek. And some of us decided to pull a mad relocation of a secret substance (it's everywhere). I honestly do not remember a lot of what happened all night long as we just turned into mad, laughing crazy people. The room's air was moist, warm, and rancid. We had been provided Baha Fresh for dinner. What we didn't know was the gas it would produce. I'd say it his Chris the hardest. The smell raped and pillaged the nostrils.

As always, problems were continuous. I had never worked on iMovie before. This program drove me bananas because it is supposed to be extremely simple, but with its simplicity, it was extremely limited in what you could do. Multiple times, audio would be thrown out of whack, sometimes right when the segment was finished. I'm not going to go into it, but we lost a lot of time. I just had a brain fart (allusion to the events of the night) and I can't remember much more to write.

In the morning, Beau and I decided to dress up rather strangely and take an out of tune electric guitar played August Rush style and a paint stirrer and go out on campus and create some "sick beats" (thanks Austin). We had a good time in our epic tiredness and rhythm. The assembly was interesting. First of all, the most emotional part (for me anyway) of the video was completely lost due to stereo/mono conversion (if you have any idea what I'm talking about, I'm impressed). Second, the video wasn't even displayed in full-screen. The entire film was seen with the windows start menu (it was played on a laptop) and the windows media player interface on it. It was ridiculous. I don't think it was a successful screening for those two reasons. We worked our hearts out on that film and it wasn't even displayed properly. Luckily, the crowd didn't know what they were missing, so in that sense it was alright. It was still extremely frustrating. Watch the film as it was supposed to be down below.

The assembly was extremely emotional for a lot of people. The living dead as well as the crash victims all made statements to their friends and family as if they had really passed on. There was a lot of crying and emotions, as kleenex were being passed row to row. I think it was the fact that we had stayed up all night, but Nate Sutton pointed out of me and Beau a student in a red hat who was clearly bored out of his brain. This caused uncontrollable laughter (no offense to the current speaker at the time, we are deeply sorry) for a rather extended amount of time. I literally had tears rolling of my face. I felt really bad. I think I'm done. I might add more to this in the future. I don't know.

One last thing, Nate Sutton edited the crash scene. It is brilliant, by far the high point of the film. He edited that segment for probably 8 straight hours. Heroic. Also, Hans Gundelfinger made the opening titles. Awesome way to open the film. Props.


Royal High School - Every 15 Minutes from Morgan Lott on Vimeo.

Royal High School - March 11-12, 2009 - Every 15 Minutes



"Every 15 Minutes is a two-day program focusing on high school juniors and seniors, which challenges them to think about drinking, driving, personal safety, and the responsibility of making mature decisions. Along with alcohol related crashes, it focuses on the impact that their decisions would have on family and friends."


The Crew (As appeared in the credits)

Producer:
PTSA
Royal Video Production

Director:
Harriet Hunsaker

Co-Director:
Alicia De La Torre

Assistant/Producers:
Baylee Fode
Cody Edmonson
Ethan Castillo

Cameras:
Beau Akers
Sarah Barson
Chris Deveux
Baylee Fode
Hans Gundelfinger
Kamaile Kim
Morgan Lott
Tamara McCarty
Sevag Mehterian
Tyler Nicodin
Chris Oestman
Tim O'Hayer
Gabriel Pabon
Nate Sutton
Austin Volpe
Denise Wrigley

Editors:
Beau Akers
Cheyne Austin
Chris Deveux
Hans Gundelfinger
Morgan Lott
Tamara McCarty
Sevag Mehterian
Nate Sutton
Austin Volpe
Alicia De La Torre


The Cast

Crash Victims:
Sergio Cortez
Erick Pahua
Nicole Houghton
Katie Bannon

The Living Dead:
Juliet Buff
Kaitlyn Carter
Jamine Castillo
Amy Cole
Kristen Currie
Paige Egizi
Hayli Harrah
Jamie Honea
Jarrett Leiner
Michael Leipzig
Kari Lev
Alyssa Moore
Kelsie Oberender
Donna Parry
Taylor Rapp
Annelli Redlin
Kelly Ross
Monica Schmidt
Mallory Short
Stephanie Siewert
Lindsay Szymanski


oh yeah: somethings I remembered/people reminded me: while some of us were hard at work, four people at a time were jamming to Rock Band in the other room on the big screen. Pretty epic. Also, me and my buddy Beau Akers had a phat chillout sesh, listening to some phat chillout sesh tunes. We just sat and chilled for a good while....