"MACBETH: ACT 5" — A Student Short Film

[ Please click "READ MORE" to read the story behind this video, as it would mean a lot to the creator if you did. ]

First of all – I can't believe I managed to pull this off.

After hearing about how almost a lot of students and scholars at DLA had witnessed this personal project of mine (even though that was not my initial intention; I just made this for my Humanities class!), I decided that I might as well submit it to the Submissions column on The Firebird Press website. It was a completely voluntary, independent project that my friends and I are extremely proud of. So I thought it was appropriate that I share it here.

Okay. So I guess I should relay the story behind this. Personally, I had always enjoyed telling stories. It started when I was a toddler, by playing "make believe" and making stories and characters up in my head. Then came my early years of elementary school, when I finally decided to try writing these stories down on paper. I learned how to sing, and then learned how to relay stories through music. In Junior High, I was able to act on stage for the first time - I had experienced what it meant to tell a story through theatre. It was around that same time that I had picked up a camera (one that I had asked and received for Christmas. Thank you, parents.) and started messing around with it. I had initially used it for making YouTube videos, filming vlogs and song covers and uploading them to my channel.

Give it a bit of time and you'll find that I started to gain an interest in film making and cinematography. I would watch movies, but I found myself often doing more than just "watching" them.

It wasn't until sometime around now that I decided to try my hand at telling a story through the lens of a camera. Before the conception of this short film, I had already made a few video edits similar to those one might find while scrolling through fandom hashtags on Instagram or Vine. Two of those edits involved me actually filming myself and then using that footage to make those mentioned edits. Fast forward a bunch of months and you'll find me sitting in Mr. Schiavon's 10th grade Humanities class reading the beginning of William Shakespeare's, Macbeth.

You can see where this is about to go.

For some reason, I have this tendency to visualize stories and ideas through music and aesthetics and made-up movies in my head. I could hear a song or see an image and somehow formulate an entire story out of it. Well, right after reading Act 1, Scene 5 of Macbeth (AKA Lady Macbeth's first appearance in the play) I IMMEDIATELY made a playlist based on Lady Macbeth (which you can find here). There was one song in particular that I came across while building this playlist, and that song was "Scars" by Boy Epic. The minute I heard this song, I instantly envisioned what my interpretation of a Macbeth film would be like.

It didn't occur to me at the time that such a thing would end up coming to fruition.

I found that I really, REALLY wanted to make this short film a thing. So I asked my parents, and they ended up encouraging and supporting my idea. I asked Mr. Schiavon if I could go through with such a project (since we were already making videos in class as an activity anyway), and he said, "Yes." I began asking a lot of my friends if they were interested in helping out with this project, and I was surprised to find that some of them really were (Jack, in particular, was rather enthusiastic about it all). I was genuinely STUNNED at the fact that these people were willing to sacrifice their own time just to help me bring what some may view as a silly dream to life.

Thus, the work began.

The evening right after I had gotten Schiavon's blessing to do this video, I started filming the first scenes. After that, it was a week long process of doing further research into the play, planning/outlining the video and the various scenes (here's the original outline), scouting areas for locations to film at, and gathering materials for props and special effects.

Funny story about location scouting by the way — it was really awkward to have to call the Dixon Lake Park Ranger's office about whether or not they allowed swords (blunt swords, mind you) in the area. They said, "No."

Sunday, January 28, was the official shoot day. I asked my friends to meet me at Kit Carson Park at 9 AM. Once everyone was settled, we started filming. Some of my original plans for some the scenes didn't work out, so I had to be flexible and improvise on the spot. My camera was also running out of battery halfway through the shoot, so I had to use my dad's phone camera (thank god the iPhone 7 has a good quality camera) and get creative with angles and perspectives so that the visual of the scene didn't look "flat." It was a long and tiring day, but we definitely had a lot of fun with it. There were a lot of laughs, and overall it was just so nice to spend the day with each other.

BY THE WAY – We filmed near a playground...with CHILDREN...while walking around with SWORDS...you could imagine how this ensued. There was this one kid who saw us filming the scene where Macduff walks away with Macbeth's head and asked, "Can I be part of what you're doing?" Unfortunately, I said no, but I admired this kid's spirit.

I needed one more day to film Lady Macbeth's scenes, due to my camera's dying battery on Sunday. But after that, I was set to edit. It took three evenings to edit this video, with me having to stay up until 2 AM during the final evening. It was a really difficult process, especially since I was running Sony Vegas Pro on what was not exactly the best laptop for the program. There was a a lot of glitching and a lot of issues that I had to fix manually. Thankfully, I was able to finish the video and still manage to get a few hours of shut-eye.

But when I watched it by myself for the first time – Oh my god.

I wanted to scream (which I couldn't do, since my parents were sleeping). I'm pretty sure I would have cried at the sight of it had I not been so exhausted. Sure, it wasn't exactly as I had initially imagined it but. Just. Oh. My. God. The emotion of the music, the sound of the voiceovers, the look of the scenes, the way everything just moved together.

I literally could not believe that I had actually made this video. I can safely say that the creation of this short film is the fulfillment of one my dreams. Like that whole thing about, "If you can dream it, you can be it" – it actually happened for me. And I could not believe it. I had always wanted to make something like this, and I did.

On Thursday, February 1, I simply could not wait to get to Humanities class. All I knew was that Mr. Schiavon had promised to show my video to the class on that day. For the most part, I wasn't really thinking about how my class would react to the video. In all honesty, I was just so excited to finally be sharing this with people.

When I walked into Mr. Schiavon's room, I was met with Bianca telling me that Mr. Schiavon had emailed this video to all of our village's teachers as well as Ms. Schwartz, Ms. Talbott and Ms. Stillman.

I was certainly. Not. OKAY. Ask anyone in my class what happened after that. They'd love to tell you the bizarre tale of how I immediately got down on the floor and screamed.

"MY HEART IS PALPITATING!" I said to Bianca right after getting up off the floor.

Following this, Mr. Schiavon instructed everyone to sit down, thus commencing the start of class. He gave his usual introduction, and then proceeded to mention my video. It was at that point when my heart rate spontaneously doubled in BPM. He introduced the video, allowed me to say a few words about it to my class, and then finally dimmed the lights and presented it on the projector.

There are three extremely thrilling experiences that I've had in my life. One involves riding rollercoasters. The other involves that rush of adrenaline I get from performing on stage. The last was experienced right there in my Humanities class on February 1, 2018 when I finally presented what first started out as a crazy idea of mine.

Once Mr. Schiavon pressed "Play," the class was dead silent. The way I felt as the video progressed can only be described using this one phrase: my heart swelled. I saw the way everyone was watching. I could feel the sort of energy they had as they looked at the screen. I might have been shaking in my seat, but I can't remember now.

Eventually, we got to the final scene. The screen cut to black, and there was a moment of peace before the music crescendoed into the credits. At that moment, I somehow forgot how to breathe. Aside from the video, everything just seemed so quiet. I looked over at Mr. Schiavon, who was watching from his laptop. He was smiling. A teacher, a person whom I greatly respect, was smiling at my work. Do you know how much that means to someone like me? He looked over at me, and the look in his eyes seemed to relay his thoughts on the video. A few seconds after the screen had cut to black, after that moment of peace linger for a bit, Mr. Schiavon began to clap. The rest of the class followed in suit.

I kid you not when I say that I was literally about to cry.

School went on as usual. The days went on as they do. But during about a one-week period after I had presented that video to my class, I would be randomly stopped by teachers and fellow students who complimented me on my video. I knew that Mr. Schiavon had shared the video with many teachers and that both 10th grade Humanities teachers had shared it with their periods, but I DID NOT EXPECT IT TO RESULT IN THE WAY IT DID! I was dismissed from POD one day and as the Engineering X-Block students began to enter Mr. Nems's room, people just started randomly commenting on my video. There was a string of 3-4 people that walked past me and said, "I really enjoyed your video!" Just. Wow.

Even as I typed this, I still cannot believe that I managed to take a random thought of mine and materialize it into something that got way more attention than it deserves. Throughout the entire process of making this short film, I worked with one main motto in mind: if you've got a dream, you've gotta work for it. Who would have thought it would end up paying off.

I am extremely grateful for my parents who helped me out in purchasing prop materials, driving me to my shoot location, providing food for the cast, and advising me during this whole endeavor. Without them, none of this could have been possible. I am also very thankful for everyone in the cast who volunteered to be in my video. They did not have to help me under any circumstances. They could have easily said, "No." But they didn't. I don't think I could have done this without them. Lastly, I would like to thank Mr. Schiavon for letting me show this video to my class. If it hadn't been for him allowing me to present my video as well as sharing it with so many people, I don't think my project would have had an audience.

And to everyone who has seen this video: THANK YOU. From the bottom of my heart to every atom of my being, thank you. Just thank you so, so much.