SANTA CRUZ — Students from Harbor High School’s International Baccalaureate film class recently returned from the “Clash of the Titans” student film competition in Paris, France, where they took home awards for best screenwriting, sound design and people’s choice for best picture.
The class, led by Harbor High film teacher Larkin Wilson, was the only one from a public school and the only school in North America invited to compete in the international short film showdown, which was organized by the American School of Paris and held over four days at the end of January.
The students raised money for the trip throughout the school year to reach their goal of about $100,000 to fly and stay in Paris for the global competition. After hosting a bazaar and flea market in December, the students were more than stoked to find that they’d hit their mark.
“It was really exciting,” said senior and sound designer Arthur Tan. “We put in a lot of effort for this. The class even made two different ads to get the word out about the fundraising.”
After initially arriving in Paris, the young Santa Cruzans experienced a type of January weather they were not used to and a cold shock as they left the airport.
“We were still in the airport and you could see your breath,” said senior and cinematographer Eva McCarthy. “When the automatic doors opened, a wave of like 28 degrees hit us. It was really cold.”
In Paris, the Harbor High School students were excited to meet their international peers who hailed from places such as Doha, Qatar, Santiago, Chile — Beijing and Shanghai, China — and France. The day before the official competition, the students from each school were put into mixed groups for a scavenger hunt activity that allowed them to get to know each other and go sightseeing in the City of Light.
“They were able to visit all these iconic locations in Paris,” explained Wilson. “For example, they would show up at the Louvre and have to film a scene, and then at Notre Dame.”
Senior and amateur auteur Kaz Johnson told the Sentinel that his team had an interesting experience during the scavenger hunt, while filming a scene that included a Parisian street performer playing the accordion.
“He was like, if you film me then you have to pay,” said Kaz. “So I gave him some money and he was like no, each of you has to pay me. And then tensions sort of got a little high.”
The Harbor High students had other interesting interactions with the native Parisians such as screenwriting senior Portia Clevenger, who got an impromptu hair cut inside a grocery store.
“I am in the store trying to check out and this guy points at me and asks me if I am American,” said Portia. “I tell him I am and he says to me, ‘All the dry and all the dead, I can get it all out.’ I asked him if he had a card and he said, ‘No, I’ll do it here.’ He whips out some scissors and grabs me by the shoulders and starts chopping my hair off in the store. I think the cashier was getting some amusement from it. My hair looked exactly the same and I was down 3 euros.”
For the “Clash of the Titans” competition, the student teams had 48 hours to create a short film from scratch. Participants pull two genres from a hat and have the choice to pick one or the other, or combine the two genres. The groups are assigned specific locations to film and usually have to incorporate an assigned prop into the film. This year, however, the mystery prop was the location.
“When I was preparing, I thought, whatever the prop is, I’m going to make that the center point,” said screenwriter and senior Dylan Hoffmanfriedes. “And then the prop was the location. That was the most challenging part. A prop or an object is more simple to wrap something around because it’s tangible but a location is more of a concept.”
Because the other students in the competition came from international private schools and the Harbor High crew were the only public school students, they felt like underdogs going in, but later realized that fancy equipment isn’t really necessary to make a great short film.
“On our filming day, it was really intimidating,” said junior and director Reese Weiss. “We got there in the morning and saw all of the other teams pull up with humongous suitcases full of equipment, and one team had a huge spider gimbal. I fully thought that there would be a huge difference because of the quality of equipment they had. But once we saw it on the big screen, there was not really a big difference. Honestly, some of our films had better quality than other groups.”
Because of cold and windy weather, the teams’ editors had to seek refuge after filming to complete their assigned task.
“Our group filmed on an island in the middle of the Seine so I decided I couldn’t edit on location and had to hike out to a restaurant,” said senior Scott Tell. “We mapped it out and went to a restaurant that was supposedly a cafe but it was a really nice, high-end restaurant. There were no cafes in sight. I went back and tried to edit outside but it started raining. The wind was awful. Some groups had to dub over scenes. It left the editors to wait until the final hours to make a mad dash to get everything done.”
The other students mentioned that Scott locked himself in a room to get the editing done by the deadline so they weren’t disqualified.
“It was very chaotic at the last minute,” Scott added.
Wilson pointed out that the 15 Harbor High students — who competed as three separate teams: green, red and blue — were nominated in every award category, from screenwriting to editing and cinematography. Ultimately, Team Green won best sound design for its film called “Hindsight,” and Team Red won best screenwriting for its suspense/thriller, “The Butterfly Effect.” Team Blue won people’s choice for best picture for “Fast Trashion,” a spoof on influencer culture.
“I think the proof is in the pudding,” said Wilson. “Seeing their names pop up on the screen category after category must have quelled all of those other feelings they were having and validated their own ability and strength.”
Wilson said that all of the participating schools produced strong short films, which highlighted the extraordinary talent of the Harbor High students.
“If you succeed in a sea of people who don’t do well that doesn’t mean much,” said Wilson. “The quality of all the films was really high and the quality of Harbor High’s films were exceptional. And so I couldn’t have been more proud. We all wanted to win, but more than anything I just wanted them to make great films, and they did.”
The class will host a public screening of their films May 17 at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz.
To watch the winning short films, visit the “Clash of the Titans” website.
