Over the course of fall break, Derby High School’s video production class, known as DTV, split into five groups to create a series of short films.

“This is very different out of everything I’ve done,” sophomore Cavey Viney said, who participated in the competition.

Each film must have completed the following requirements: A silhouette/reflection shot, a dad joke/pun and have a mentor archetype.

“It was cool getting together and filming something, like working on it and brainstorming,” junior Figo Nguyen said.

This was most of the classes first time working with a large group of people on a single project.

“I feel like it went well, I’ve never done something with a team before,” Nguyen said.

Each group was also given a specific genre, for example, Viney’s group was given Fantasy.

“I don’t really know how to do fantasy, and I didn’t know how to schedule everything,” Viney said.

“We had an action/adventure that was like a treasure hunting movie,” junior Aleah Jones said.

Several students had to overcome various challenges to complete their films.

“Everything I really liked except the animation part, because I don’t really know how to do animation,” Viney said.

The most common problem the groups ran into was scheduling when to film.

“There was a lot of trying to text people and figure out dates and when people weren’t busy during Thanksgiving break, and then it was getting everybody into my small garage and fiddling things around,” senior Heron Carter said.

Multiple students were pushed out of their comfort zones and had to try new things.

“I don’t really like acting, but I’ll do it if I have to,” Nguyen said.

“I’m more improvisational and I don’t really like to plan out things,” Viney said.

Once fall break was over, students then had to edit their footage together as the final step in making their films.

“The process of editing took a little longer than we thought, but I think we have a good movie,” Jones said.

All in all, the students had a unique and fun experience.

“Previous projects I’ve done I mostly did by myself, but this one had actual actors and other people, it was pretty cool,” Carter said.

There will be another competition in second semester, during spring break.

“I enjoyed the project, I’m excited to do another one later in the year,” Jones said.