This year, Wayland High School students have had the opportunity to participate in a new elective called Script to Screen. By the end of the year, students in this class will showcase their movies at the WHS Movie Festival on Wednesday, June 1st.

The course brings together the talents of both student actors and directors. The movie making process combines the work of two different classes. One class, led by Mary Barber and Erin Dalbec, focuses on writing movie scripts. The other class, taught by Richard Weingartner, performs a select few of the written scripts with his Dramatic Arts II course.

Because it is an honors level class, there are multiple prerequisites. Students must have completed either TV Production I and II or a dramatic arts class before taking Script to Screen.

Jacob Sussman, a sophomore, had not taken TV production, but had previous filming experience that qualified him to participate.

“They sent us out on our own to do independent projects pretty early on,” said Sussman. “If I hadn’t had previous experience working with a camera it would’ve been difficult.”

In November, a group of faculty members read and selected the final scripts that have since been turned into films. The four films are called, The Barn, Epidemic, Envision and Nightmares.

“I’m glad to be getting into different mediums of acting, and it’s always cool to do TV and movie work because it’s what everyone has aspirations to do,” said sophomore actress Caitlin O’Keeffe.

Students were not guaranteed work on the scripts that they wrote. Specific students designated as ”directors” went through the process of casting actors and recently finished the filming and editing processes.

“The directors are in charge of the creative stuff,“ said sophomore crew member Samantha Briasco-Stewart. ”They choose how and where the movie is going to be shot and who to cast.”

“It’s pretty chill and not high stress and what we’re doing is interesting,” added Sussman.

The Movie Festival will be the culmination of the entire year’s worth of work from the class and will reflect the students’ writing, acting and production skills.

The Movie Festival will be held Wednesday, June 1st at 7:00pm in the Little Theatre. Tickets for the Movie Festival are being sold during lunches and in the Library Media Center. Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for adults.