Student Day has long been part of the Yorkton Film Festival, and it was again held Thursday hosted by Sacred Heart High School in the city.
Each year, the Festival focuses on educating youths from across the province by connecting them with content development mentors.
The event is a day of hands-on instructive learning for Yorkton and area students; who spent the day shooting, editing, and learning the finer points of what it takes to make a film going from storyboard to screen.
The hands-on work is carried out under the tutelage of veteran directors, producers, editors, and writers.
One of those instructors was Shane Metcalfe with ISEE Motion Picture Company in Saskatoon.
Melcalfe said while it is only his second year being involved with Student Day he has long been a supporter of the Yorkton festival having attended his first festival when he was 20, adding he is now 46.
“I just want to support the film industry. I want to see a bigger and better film industry in Saskatchewan,” he said.
That is where Metcalfe feels Student Day is an important element of the festival.
“It’s showing them, (students) there are options. Not everyone has to work in the resource sector, or agriculture,” he said.
Student Day is designed to give participants a taste of the varied carrers connected to the film festival.
Students were broken into groups to film a scene taken from two popular films, Napoleon Dynamite and The Breakfast Club.
Students worked on the single scene for the day, the scenes being set up as much as possible as it would if it were an actual movie shoot. Students, based on their areas of interest were assigned specific areas of production: camera, sound, lights, directing, editing, etc.
Metcalfe said that is one of the great aspects of the film industry, the diversity of skills needed, from people focused on the business side of film, through to writers, those behind the camera, and those who act in front of the camera.
In general, Metcalfe said students know a lot going into a day like the one in Yorkton.
“They’ve watched so many more motion pictures the we saw (as youth),” he said, adding that gives them insights into the industry if they have an interest.
Apparently the interest is growing. Metcalfe said this year some 40 students took place in the day.
“That’s the highest attendance ever,” he said.
