Fishers, Ind. - The next Steven Spielberg, maybe a future Tom Hanks, or a Shonda Rhimes could very well be honing their skills behind the walls of one central Indiana high school.
A small group of students at Hamilton Southeastern High School have done in one year, what some of Hollywood's best producers and directors can't accomplish. Those students are apart of a group called, Olio Road Productions, and they put together a feature-length film, we are talking about a 90 minute movie, over the course of one school year.
And mind you, these students don't have a multi-million dollar budget. What they do have, is a lot of creativity, a massive amount of determination. Those sound like abstract words. But, I can give you a number. The group spent 1,200 hours outside of school working on this year's film, "Iris".
Hamilton Southeastern H.S. teacher, Jamie Follis, started the Film Studies Club in 2002. However, in 2013, Follis upped the ante. He began having some students spend the year creating a feature-length film. Then in 2014, he created Olio Road Productions which is the group of students who now create those movies.
Fast forward to this year. Senior Spencer Lawson spent the summer writing a script, which would eventually become, "Iris". The plot of the film is described best from its website, "An ambitious high schooler attempts to study the nature of the nightmares infecting her school, but has to fight against circumstance, memory, and time as the line between dreams and reality blur."
Production really started in the fall and it took the entire school year to come up with the finished product, but it wasn't easy.
"The biggest hurdle this year was when we were half way through filming and our lead actor had to move out of state," said Follis. "Films are not like plays, we could not bring up the understudy, we had hundreds of hours of footage and a plot that revolved around the character. The students were very worried. We had an emergency meeting after school until late at night. We talked about other famous films that had to get creative after losing an actor. We listed what we had and pitched ideas for what we could do. Eventually we came up with a great twist that made the movie and story better in many ways. It was a great learning experience for the students."
But Follis says the students overcame what seemed like an impossible situation by coming together with the right attitude.
"The highlights for me were watching this group of kids, who did not really know each other, come together and become like a family."
Olio Road Productions at Hamilton Southeastern is even offering a lesson in higher learning. Follis says the club recently connected with Indiana University who had asked about how the club was able to complete such a big task at the high school level. Follis says his model is difficult, but is the most realistic to working on an actual film set.
Follis says in addition to learning about the extensive process in making a feature film, the students learned how to set goals, work with others, solve conflict, and be creative and professional.
You can go to a screening of "Iris" on Saturday, May 26, at Hamilton 16 IMAX in Noblesville at 9 a.m. There will also be future screenings. You can learn about this and more at the Olio Road Production's website (click here).
