The Rumson Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) Film Club has created an award-winning Connection.
One of its entries to the NJ High School Film Challenge entitled Bad Connection was awarded Best Cinematography.
The annual competition, held virtually this year and organized by the Jackson School District, featured student-produced films from across the state. Prior to the pandemic, Jackson Liberty High School hosted the New Jersey High School Film Challenge onsite and the day included workshops with industry professionals, hands-on learning with equipment, teacher roundtable talk and concluded with a hosted awards show and screening of the winning films.
In pandemic times, however, budding Bulldog filmmakers have been developing their craft solo.
For this year’s virtual challenge, students had five days to write, film and edit their work. The winning film is dubbed Bad Connection and was written and produced by senior Jaden Lanfrank, and sophomores Tyler Izzo and Molly Patten.
In accordance with the NJ High School Film Fest prompt for this year, Connection entries were limited to three minutes or less and had to include the prop of a picture frame.
While many of the other school districts that participated have dedicated media programs to assist the film production, RFH coordinates its efforts through an extracurricular club through which members meet monthly to share their mutual interest and talents. Club officers, Lanfrank, Izzo and Patten, wrote, filmed and edited their piece outside of the classroom and with their own equipment — an iPhone.
This isn’t a first award-winning filmmaking this spring for both Lanfrank and Izzo. Each submitted a different, unique short film this month to the Monmouth County Teen Arts Festival and both were nominated for adjudication at the NJ State Teen Arts Festival to be held in early June.
This event will also be held virtually this year.
The RFH Film Club conducts school wide activities and fundraisers throughout the year under the guidance of English and Cinema Studies teachers, Lauren Grumbach and Dana Maulshagen.
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