Now you can be in the movies at Hawthorne High School thanks to a new piece of technology, a Yoostar Entertainment System,  that has been installed in Jill Hackett’s Performance English classroom.

The Yoostar is a green screen, web camera, and a computer program that allows the user to act in a movie scene. To use the Yoostar, the user picks a clip from a list of famous movies, chooses the actor he or she would like to play, and then follows along with prompted lines (or the student actor can adlib). Hackett’s class was able to use it for the first time on February 15, 2013. Hackett stated, “It’s funny to play it back and see one’s self doing a famous scene with a famous actor.” Although it took a little while to get use to, Hackett believes with a little time, the class will be able to handle the new program with no problem.

Hackett believes that the Yoostar is great for showing the students in her Performance English classes how to act with physical reactions such as facial expressions, timing, and actor-to-actor collaboration.

Yoostar was given to Hackett as a gift from HHS Media Specialist, Theresa DiGeronimo. Hackett and her students are very grateful for the new piece of technology that they find both entertaining and educational. Hackett explained, “Because we do things in the class related to performance of any kind, the concept of ‘doing a scene’ with an actor or actress is fun!”