AP English Gives Birth to a WISE Project                                                                      

At Rockland Country Day School, enrollment in AP classes doesn’t rule out participation in WISE. A number of the seniors most heavily invested in AP classes are equally heavily invested in full-blown, intriguing WISE projects. In fact, AP classes have, at times, been the inspiration for some of these projects. One interesting project grew out of  this year’s AP English class in which four seniors are enrolled. To give the American Literature AP class a bit of a break from all the heavy reading assigned, the teacher had the class read Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, true Americana that it is. Naturally, watching the classic Bogart movie followed close behind and the students became fascinated with the idea of film noire. Each of them had previously come up with a good idea for WISE but…creating their own film noire suddenly took precedence for three out of those four seniors …and the fourth is joining in, when she can, adding her own touches as she simultaneously juggles (expertly, we might add) her own, very creative, WISE project.

Film Noire—and then Some                                                                                                             As one wrote in his proposal: “The goal is to create a short film noire. Together, we will storyboard, write, act in, film, edit and score the film. I myself will be playing the role of Phillip Marlow and handling the recording and sound mixing of the score. The essential questions we will answer are those of culture. We will explore the genre and style of film noir and why it emerged at the time that it did. We will also explore the cultural agenda of the era, delving into gender roles, sexism, racism and violence. Through our narrative we wish to explore the lengths to which humans will go to seek justice and how people are compelled to commit morally wrong actions, all the while challenging assumptions of gender and justice.”

They’re well into their project by now, each doing his or her very unique and significant part of it AND each working with the others as part of a well-functioning team. After drafting the AP English teacher in dual capacity as both their joint AND each’s individual mentor, they found alumni from the school with experience in filming, recording, editing and all other technical matters who agreed to come in with their expert advice; they have also gone out, sought and gained advice from many of the professional filmmakers who live in the area.

The storyboarding and screen play were finished in early March. Now that April is here, it’s shooting time. At last report, after two full days of shooting, several scenes, including one set in a “cold case” file room (actually the rather dank, dark basement of the upper school building), have been completed . Post production will wait until all AP exams are out of the way, at which point the final thrust can be made to put the entire film together. Then watch for a premiere in June – a wonderful way to finish off WISE!