By: Hera Ashraf <[email protected]>

Junior Sarah Donaldson is a student of a new course started here, called IB Film. Donaldson decided to take the course because she said she wanted to go more into film than theater.

“I am normally in drama, but I didn’t want to do theater acting; I wanted to do film acting. So, I thought that I should learn about the industry,” Donaldson said.

According to IB Film teacher Jim Peterson, this school was chosen as a pilot to try the course this year. Next year, it will be offered in all schools.

The IB diploma was offered last year, and all teachers received training the year before 2006 for teaching the IB classes. Peterson said he missed that year of training, so he had to start training for IB Theater last year when he said he found out about IB Film.

“I thought (IB Film) was a nice course to offer, and this year was the last year for piloting. So I put in the application, and I wrote up my biography, talked about what we had as far as equipment in the school and how many people I thought might take it,” Peterson said. “I put up the proposal, and we got accepted.”

The course has three parts. Peterson said, “(IB Film) really concentrates on three main areas: production, film theory and history and textual analysis.”

Donaldson said that IB Film was a great course to learn about all aspects of film.

“We get to watch a few films, and we study about them and learn about all the angles. We learn why things are used, and we get projects throughout the year,” Donaldson said.

The current project the students of IB Film are working on is movie trailers for the Elliot Rosewater books. “It used to be done by the theater students, but they passed that over to the film students,” Donaldson said. These trailers will be shown in the library for previews for books.

Peterson said that the students in this class work on many different kinds of projects from short movies to written reports.

One project the students are working on is the IB Film Festival at the end of the year. Peterson said that they will be showcasing all the work of the students in the class throughout the year in the auditorium.

Peterson said that he recommends the class to all students, even those who aren’t even going for the IB Diploma.

“I think film is fantastic, and it is a great medium. It is very popular today and can be very expensive. But the cool thing now is that the equipment is accessible with video cameras and editing on computers. Having the program on every computer is a big step, so kids can actually be film makers,” Peterson said.

Donaldson said, “You will never watch a movie the same way ever again because you will know what lighting does what and what angle does what for a viewer. It really helps you understand like why certain things happen in films and what the process is. And it is a wonderful process.”