Hawthorne High School Media Arts teacher, John Di Lonardo, led his Media Arts II class in the direction of making super-hero and super-villain movie trailers.

The students from all the Media Arts II classes, which run third and seventh periods, were divided into different groups of four. The groups were required to produce a two-minute super-hero or super-villain movie trailer and to prepare a pre-production inspiration board, script and storyboard before they began filming.

To create the trailers, green screen technology was used to add visual effects for actions and/or locations. The students also used the green screen technology to highlight the “superpowers” that were used in their trailers. To progress with the video editing portion of their project, students used Final Cut Express. Apple.com states that The Final Cut Express software is an “amazing new timeline, which has dynamic media organization that takes the work out of finding clips, and also shows blazing performance.”

Hawthorne High School senior, Megan Menary stated, “At first I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this project, but I was wrong. The trailers are turning out very nicely and are really fun to make! Using the green screen is what really helped bring the trailers together; it opened up several opportunities for our trailer.”

Depending on the class size and period, there were three to four different trailers per class.

Senior and Media Arts student, Jake Caramico, excitedly stated, “Get ready for this; this is going to be great! Our movie is about a scientist in the high school and a villain called Mystique Mustache, played by senior Rachel Kane, who goes around pranking people in the school. One day she goes too far and kills an innocent student, played by senior Greg Mendez. I play the super hero, The Spelunking Camel, and end up saving the day and flying into the clouds.”

The trailers were screened in class on May 6.