They are talented students being recognized on the world stage because of their passion for film making and for their amazing skills in storytelling.

On this episode of the Supercast, meet students in the Riverton High School video production class who just walked away with second place in an International Video Competition as part of the Student Television Network. Find out how a short horror film they produced is getting rave reviews and critical acclaim, with the students competing against young storytellers all over the world.

View the winning submissions from the Student Television Network video contest

Audio Transcription

Mr. Luchs:
It's a competition between hundreds of different schools and thousands of students.

Student:
It had to be local folklore.

Student:
It was this guy that was exiled in like the mid*-1800s to like Fremont Island.

Student:
I think that that'd make a pretty good ghost story.

Mr. Luchs:
You spend those all-nighters making that color palette just right. That's the small details that separates you from, you know, sixth, seventh place or even two hundredth place.

[Music]

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are talented students being recognized on the world stage because of their passion for filmmaking and their amazing skills in storytelling. On this episode of the Supercast, meet students in the Riverton High School video production class who just walked away with second place in an international video competition as part of the student television network. Find out how a short horror film they produced is getting rave reviews and critical acclaim.

[Music]

Anthony Godfrey:
We're here at Riverton High School talking with students from the video production program. Introduce yourself, tell us what grade you're in, and what drew you to this program. Why did you want to be part of this?

Brennan Staggs:
Hello, I'm Brennan Staggs and I'm a sophomore and the thing that drew me into this program was the — I've always been into film so I think film is pretty cool.

Rockwood Inkley:
My name is Rockwood Inkley or Rocky and I'm also sophomore. The thing that drew me into this is I just, I love learning new types of art so I guess I saw this and thought it looked cool so I signed up.

Amden Olson:
Hi, I'm Amden Olson. I'm a sophomore and the thing that drew me to this is I've been doing photography for about two and a half years. I run an automotive photography business where we just started doing video so doing this helps me advance in my career and hopefully the video will be a pilot.

Scott Nelson:
Hello guys, I'm Scott Nelson and what drew me to this class was I've always wanted to be a filmmaker when I was a child and I saw that Riverton had video classes and thought it was really exciting.

Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me what it's like being in this class right now. What are some of the things you've learned and what you love most about it?

Student:
I think I've learned mostly on how to make better videos on film and that's what I love about it.

Student:
My favorite thing in this class is using Premiere Pro and post-production. I find it fascinating.

Student:
I enjoy this class because it has helped me learn more about video composition, which is some of the things that clients really like. If you don't have good composition you're not going to get clients.

Student:
I love this class because it lets me be creative in the morning and I've learned how to use the equipment and how to edit better.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the competition that you just won, the international competition that you just won and what that's all about and what you made that allowed you to win this competition.

Student:
This was a horror fest so we had to make a one-minute horror short film. It had to be local folklore so we spent a while, me and Brennan, spent a while looking for local folklore and we came across this story from the 1860s.

Student:
Yeah, around the mid-1800s. It was a, what was his name? Jean Baptist. It was this guy that was exiled in the mid-1800s to Fremont Island, I believe.

Student:
One of the islands in Salt Lake. He was a grave robber and he got sent to the island and they found a skeleton, I think, at the base of the Jordan River with the words "grave robber" in the skull and it was chained and shackled which they didn't send him to the island chained and shackled. So I thought that'd make a pretty good ghost story.

Anthony Godfrey:
Let's ask your teacher to introduce himself and tell us a little bit about the competition.

Mr. Luchs:
My name is Mr. Luchs. This is my fourth year at Riverton High School. I'm the video productions teacher and I love it.

Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me about the competition, what's involved and who were they up against?

Mr. Luchs:
Yeah, so the competition itself is for an international organization called Student Television Network. They have a lot of different competitions throughout the year. This one is their horror film competition. This one is very unique because throughout the year, their competitions involve lots of categories for all different types of video. And so though it's a competition between hundreds of different schools and thousands of students, your category often has a portion of those students. The horror film is unique because every student in every team is making the same type of prompt. These guys, to my understanding, were up against a couple hundred different first-year student teams, and so getting second place out of all those hundreds of teams, let alone many, many, many hundreds more of students, is very cool. They did have a set of requirements. They required, as they said, to find a local folklore and based the one-minute film on that. They were also required to meet certain story and recording-based specifications, which they did a very good job of doing. Or at least so the judges did.

Anthony Godfrey:
I already like the color tones here. Did you change the color tones at all or is this just what the Jordan River looks like? Because I'm already terrified.

Student:
I did the editing for this.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Student:
So I get every question.

Anthony Godfrey:
How long, how much editing does it take for a one-minute horror video? Because I think people probably underestimate the time that it takes. At least three minutes, I would think.

Student:
I spent an all-nighter and half a day working on the editing for this.

Anthony Godfrey:
Does editing horror films require that you do it in the middle, in the dead of night, really? Is that when you should be editing a horror movie?

Student:
No, but I am the oldest of four siblings. So that's what I get.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you have to wait till it gets quiet.

Student:
So yeah, that's when I get the most peace and quiet to work.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, that sounds fair.

Mr. Luchs:
If I might jump in, I want to give these guys a lot of credit for what he said, too about working overnight and into another day. One thing that's really interesting about being a video teacher is you have students that come to get the grade, and you have students who really give themselves to their projects and program. This is one of many classes, and I didn't require them to spend hours and hours doing this. This was an optional competition.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Mr. Luchs:
And he edited this during his fall break. So this wasn't just something he did on a whim. They really dived themselves into it. I think you guys had to record, rerecord like three different times to get all the shots that you needed.

Student:
Yes, we did have to rerecord three times. The first time we weren't very coordinated, and it ended up taking a lot more time to get us all in the right location. And our footage was kind of rushed and not very good. And the second time, the second time, was more like we had equipment malfunction and again, uncoordination. And then the final two times was when we had the actual footage that we filmed.

Anthony Godfrey:
So a lot of logistics, a lot of things to account for that you can't totally control always. And I appreciate that you went back to redo things. I think that's really cool that you dedicated as much time as you did.

Mr. Luchs:
Yeah, and I think that's really why they did so well, because like I said before, they are part of a first-year student film team. Everybody in this competition has, let's say six weeks of prior experience at most, depending on when their school year started. But what separates different first-year students from others is A) the passion and B) the commitment, because I can only teach them so much in six weeks. Their dedication to re-film, film again, get those extra shots that they think that they needed, to spend those all-nighters making that color palette just right. That's the small details that separates you from sixth, seventh place, or even 200th place in the competition. And you have to have skill. You have to have learned in your classes and pay attention for the time you have. But it's really that passion and dedication that makes them stand out.

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back, we watch the horror video with the students who produced it.

[MUSIC]

Male Voice:
Never miss an episode o...

Episode 333: Riverton High School Students Receive Critical Acclaim on International Stage