A Lynnfield High School filmmaker is bringing his film to a big screen in Saugus Monday night.
Fifteen-year-old Kyle Morais is one of several local students who will be showcasing their filmmaking talents at the FC (Filmmakers Collaborative) Academy Movie Night Monday, Aug. 31 at the Kowloon drive-in movie theater.
Morais’ film, entitled Project Donuts 3, is one of dozens of films created by students in FC Academy summer programs.
Morais created Project Donuts 1 and 2 when he was in the Lynnfield Community Schools FC SOFA (Summer of Fun Activities) program as a middle school student. This summer, the rising sophomore acted as a teaching assistant/advisor, helping program participants create what he says will be the final film in the trilogy.
Students wrote their own scripts, made costumes and props, and did all of the acting and filming. FC provided the group with cameras and other filming equipment such as boom mikes and “clappers” (the board that shows the scene number and take).
“We start by sitting around a table and pitch ideas for the script, then we split it up into scenes with everyone getting to do a couple of scenes they wrote,” Morais said, adding that a total of five students, Chris Ladd, Maria Chambers and middle schoolers Maddie Ladd (Chris’ younger sister), Lydia Buonopane and Leven Ford, and three counselors worked on the project.
The Donuts films’ plots are simple; it’s about a group of bug-eyed aliens who invade the school and steal students’ school supplies. In order to get them back, the students must pay a ransom of donuts, strawberry donuts, to be specific.
The inspiration for the donuts theme came from an unlikely source.
“We were randomly shooting at the high school and we saw a poster of donuts on the wall, so we decided to use donuts as the ransom, so to speak,” Morais said.
Morais is hesitant to give any hints that might serve as spoilers for Donuts 3, except to say that one alien has infiltrated the student ranks in a new school and is plotting to find a way to attack the students to punish them for their epic battles in Donuts 1 and 2.
“I don’t want to give away the ending, but this is probably the final installment,” he said. “It’s going to be so exciting to see it at the Kowloon, outside is pretty cool.”
Morais said the pandemic posed added challenges to the making of Donuts 3, but the students used their creativity to minimize their impact on the film.
“We obviously had to all wear masks the whole time except at lunch or during mask breaks and we had to have our temperatures taken every day,” Morais said. “So we decided to write it into the movie that since it was a new school, we made wearing masks a part of the school’s dress code. We had a new character, a new girl, who being new didn’t know she had to wear a mask, so that’s how we got that in.”
This summer, the FC Academy hosted nearly 20 week-long filmmaking classes in six towns. All of the classes were taught by professional filmmakers, guiding students as they wrote, shot and edited their own short films. Students were also able to take part in classes online opening up FC Academy to students all over the world.
“We were really blown away by how engaged our students were even in the remote setting,” said Laura Azevedo, Festival Director of the Boston International Kids Film Festival. “In one class we had a teacher working in Italy, one of their students was in South Africa and everyone was able to learn together and create their very own film.”
The Kowloon Movie Night begins at 7. Tickets are $35 per car in advance and can also be purchased online at filmmakerscollab.org/events ($45 at the door).
