All American High School Film Festival honors NPHS students in New York
Planning out scenes, finding the right lighting, and spending hours editing film, film students, Alex Meinhof, senior, Steven Owens, senior, and Andres Nuno, senior, are the stars behind the camera. All three entered the All American High School Film Festival last spring with the aid of film teacher Derek Grimes. Out of thousands of entries from across the country, Meinhof, Owens, and Nuno were finalists and were given the opportunity to travel to New York to see their film.
Meinhof and Owens were required to enter into the competition as a part of their grade for Advanced Digital Video Production, while Nuno, who was in Mass Media at the time, entered by himself.
“I was a little surprised Andres entered because he never told me… But it was great that he got the motivation to go out and do that on his own,” Grimes said.
Grimes encouraged the students to enter so they would try their best.
“I think it’s part of knowing someone is going to see your work outside of this class gives you motivation to do the best you can do. You know you’re going to have to enter it in and people will be judging your work,” Grimes said.
Meinhof created a music video for the song,“Fog Lake” by Dog Years, a Canadian alternative band.
“It was really weird music. But the song was my inspiration. The way he approaches the music, it instills some kind of emotions in yourself that you want to express,” Meinhof said.
Owens also created a music video, but for a local band called Static. The music video was based on their song, “Can’t You See.” He was surprised to find out he was a finalist in July.
“It was a pretty good feeling. I was actually pretty surprised to be honest; it was pretty awesome… My friends and family were (also) very excited for me. My mom got very interested in it and did some research on whether or not we could go to New York or not,” Owens said.
Nuno chose to enter the Jostens Yearbook Time category, where the film must tell a story while featuring a yearbook.
“The inspiration came from my nephew. He has a disability in his leg and i wanted to show how people grow when they are different and feel like an outsider… It starts off with a 20 year old guy who goes to his attic and looks at a yearbook and he’s remembering the parts of his life going through school,” Nuno said.
The finalists’ films were shown at the AMC Times Square movie theater in New York City. Nuno and Owens attended the premiere of their films.
“It was crazy and little bit overwhelming. The AMC theater is a big theater in New York and you just see that they are showing your film. It was a really fun experience” Nuno said.
While neither Meinhof, Owens and Nuno left New York with the first prize, Grimes is proud of the students for making it so far in the competition.
“Competing against students across the country so that was a good experience for them. Just being chosen for a finalist is a pretty big accomplishment,” Grimes said.
