Tag Archives: Filmmaking

Student Earth Day Film Places In Redford Competition

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Students were asked to think “outside the box” and design a product using the theme Circular Economy, then create a short film. Over 100 films were submitted from 26 states, with three from Hamlin selected to be one of the 12 finalists.

Co-founded in 2005 by Robert Redford and his son and board chair, James Redford, The Redford Center harnesses the power of film, video and new media to engage people through inspiring stories that galvanize environmental action.

A team of Grade 6 students won 3rd place and $200 for their film entitled, Eco-Friendly House Project. The film (created by Sophia T., Elena, Cate, and Vivienne) focuses on ways to make a house more eco-friendly by using recycled materials for windows, solar panels, and other features that reduce greenhouse gas production and unnecessary waste.

To learn more about the Redford Center Competition, please visit: https://stories.redfordcenter.org/about/

To watch the winning films (including ours), please visit: https://vimeo.com/409977747

Noe Valley Girls Film Festival Continues To Inspire

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Earlier this month, Hamlin students powered the Noe Valley Girls Film Festival for a 4th year. The festival showcased short films made by girls from all over the world. The Noe Valley Girls Film Festival is especially unique in that the entire festival is planned and run by girls 16 years and under.

Some key highlights were:

-250 people in attendance

-4 Pixar representatives spoke: Lourdes Alba, Lucy Laliberte, Connie Lee, and Becky Neiman-Cobb

-Ms. Alba, Ms. Lee, and Ms. Neiman-Cobb, brought their Oscar award (shown in the photo) for their animated short film, Bao

-San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman awarded all of the NVGFF team members a Certificate of Honor for their contribution to the community

-There were 3 Hamlin School submissions this year, with Molly W. (Grade 4) winning 2nd prize for her film, Lady Tiffin’s Travel Secrets. Mollie W. also won the Audience Choice Award and had her film screened at the Noe Valley Town Square movie night on Saturday, September 14

For more information about the festival please visit: http://www.nvgff.com/

Noe Valley Girls Film Festival This Weekend

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For the 4th year in a row, Hamlin students are leading the way by sharing excellent female-made films from around the world. There has always been a Hamlin presence in the Noe Valley Girls Film Festival, but this year even more students are avidly supporting this wonderful event. On Friday morning, Claire K. and Mollie W. spoke at our Lower School assembly, encouraging girls to attend the festival. Mollie W. (Grade 4) is a finalist in the competition with her film Lady Tiffin’s Travel Secrets. The film festival is this Saturday 9/7, 4pm at the Noe Valley Ministry.

The Noe Valley Girls Film Festival is very proud to announce that the Key Note Speakers for the 4th Annual Noe Valley Girls Film Festival will be some of the Pixar members from the amazing team behind the Oscar Winning Film Bao.

Bao is a 2018 animated Pixar film released with Incredibles 2 about a mother, suffering from empty nest syndrome, who receives an unexpected second chance at motherhood when she makes a steamed bun that comes to life. The film won the Oscar for the Best Animated Short Film. 

Speaking at the 2019 NVGFF will be the following movie makers from Pixar Studios: 
Becky Neiman-Cobb, Producer 
Lourdes Alba, Production Manager  
Lucy Laliberte, Production Technical Manager 
Connie Lee, Lead Coordinator 

The Noe Valley Girls Film Festival’s mission is to encourage young girls to make movies with the goals of creating a new generation of moviemakers, promoting Noe Valley, and having fun.

To learn more, please visit: http://www.nvgff.com/

Hamlin Students Lead 4th Annual Film Festival

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For the 4th year in a row, Hamlin students Caitlin and Maggie are leading the initiative to share great female-made films from around the world. There has always been a Hamlin presence in the Noe Valley Girls Film Festival, but this year even more students are avidly supporting this wonderful event.

The Noe Valley Girls Film Festival’s mission is to encourage young girls to make movies with the goals of creating a new generation of moviemakers, promoting Noe Valley, and having fun.  With today’s technology, anyone can learn to make a movie. The NVGFF is seeking short film submissions made by girls anywhere in the world in two age groups (ages 11-15 and age 10 and under).  Submissions are due by August 1, 2019, and the finalists are expected to be announced in late-August, 2019. The festival will be held at 4:00 pm on September 7, 2019, at the Noe Valley Ministry in Noe Valley, San Francisco, CA.  At the festival, we expect to show the top submissions, have a well-known local filmmaker present awards to the winners, and have a raffle.

To learn more, please visit: http://www.nvgff.com/

Student Film Selected for International Ocean Film Festival

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A talented team of Hamlin girls created the film Our Ocean as part of their Grade 5 intensive work last spring. This coming Sunday the film will be shown at the Cowell Theater (10 a.m. at Fort Mason) as part of the International Ocean Film Festival.

Now in its 16th year, the IOFF is an acclaimed festival of independent ocean-related films from all over the world. Themes range from ocean adventure, science, and marine life to sports and coastal cultures. We look for films that not only entertain audiences but also educate and inspire people to participate in environmental efforts in and around the ocean, as well as promote better ocean stewardship.

The student film explores the importance of the ocean and delves into the crucial environmental threats that it currently faces. Our Ocean blends beauty and splendor, with a call to action, echoing Hamlin’s mission to meet the challenges of our time.

To learn more about the International Ocean Film Festival, please visit: http://intloceanfilmfest.org/

To watch the film, please click on this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VgRFi4lfxzs-aUhe9zVBvFoEnAw1T3Oo/view

Hamlin Shows the Film: “If I Were The President”

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On election day, The Hamlin School welcomed filmmaker Anna Sergeeva to speak with students in grades 4-8. Ms. Sergeeva visited Hamlin last spring and filmed girls talking about what they would change if they were president for her film, If I Were The President.

Ms. Sergeeva shares more about the project:

I found a worksheet from when I was seven years old. Prompted by “If I were the President of the United States, I would change…”, I wrote “that every family has a home.”

In April 2018, I traveled across America with filmmaker Aimee Hoffman, asking over 100 young people under 18 years old what they would change if they were the President of the United States. We started in San Francisco, then headed to Boulder, Colorado, New Orleans, Nashville, rural Ohio and ended in New York City.

The project’s website – ifiwerethepresident.org – features artifacts from the journey including a short film, portraits, and written statements as well as a downloadable template to share what you would change as President and an accompanying lesson plan to facilitate this activity in schools.

Students in the film speak about the following (among other topics):

Protecting the Earth, Gun Reform, Fighting Poverty, Free and Accessible Healthcare, Free and Accessible Education, Ending War, Ending Racism, and Helping Refugees

After showing the film, our girls had the opportunity to write down what they would focus on if they were president. Multiple students then stood up and shared what they would change. Students spoke passionately about strengthening gun laws, getting rid of the electoral college, improving mental health awareness and ending homelessness.

The assembly provided students with a powerful forum to think about our democracy and our shared humanity.

 

 

 

 

Hamlin Students Speak at Alliance for Girls Event

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Thursday night four Grade 8 students and Ms. Wanda M. Holland Greene (Head of The Hamlin School) spoke at the A Day of the Girl Fundraiser and Celebration held by the nonprofit Alliance for Girls. The event took place at the Salesforce building in San Francisco.

The Hamlin School has been a member of Alliance for Girls for a number of years. The mission of Alliance for Girls is:

To ensure that girl-serving organizations are more connected, more effective and better able to prepare today’s girls to be the leaders, agents of change and thriving women of tomorrow.

Our students spoke about their work creating the film, “Strawbucks.”

Strawbucks is a short film that interweaves detailed information connecting the use of plastic straws (in businesses like Starbucks), to the growing Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The film utilizes interviews with Hamlin students to create a powerful narrative, urging viewers to replace their plastic straws with ones that are more environmentally friendly (metal, glass).

Dani shared the following in her remarks:

Girls and women have multiple stereotypes and negative connotations attached to them. We are often thought of as overly emotional. Well, we used that “emotion” to fuel and put our hearts into our film. When women are passionate about something, there is no stopping them. You push them down and we pop right back up. Investing in young women is investing in the future.

“Strawbucks,” was shown at the event, it can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H78u-Ne11Qc

 

Hamlin Students Host 3rd Annual Girls Film Festival

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On Saturday, Hamlin grade 7 students (Maggie and Caitlin), along with their older Hamlin alumnae sisters (Charlotte and Ella), hosted the 3rd annual Noe Valley Girls Film Festival. The festival was held at Noe Valley Ministry and brought together 250 people to enjoy films by girls from all over the world, notably from: Iran, China, Germany, France, and Spain.

The Noe Valley Girls Film Festival’s (“NVGFF”) mission is to encourage young girls to make movies with goals of creating a new generation of movie makers, promoting Noe Valley, and having fun.

In early 2016, a group of girls living in Noe Valley decided to form NVGFF.  They loved making movies and wanted to give an opportunity to other young girls to make and present their movies to a real live audience.  The girls started creating films in elementary school (at Hamlin) and have collectively made almost fifty movies.  They enjoyed film making so much that they decided to start a festival for all of the girls of Noe Valley.  They have been meeting every week and believe the film festival will be a great way to bring the people of Noe Valley together to watch films, and try to help girls feel empowered to be involved in film making.

For more information about the festival, please visit: http://www.nvgff.com/

 

Samantha Weaver ’88 Speaks about Filmmaking

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On Tuesday, Hamlin alumna Samantha Weaver ’88 spoke with grade 5 students about filmmaking.

Our students are in the process of developing films focused on ocean-related topics ranging from gray whales to the importance of plankton. A long-term goal is for students to submit these films to the International Ocean Film Festival and the Noe Valley Girls Film Festival (started by Hamlin girls).

Samantha Weaver has been deeply involved with the film world since her mid-twenties; acting, producing, casting, writing, among other film-related endeavors.

Hamlin School students asked Ms. Weaver questions related to both the process and the challenges involved with making films.

Below are some of the key points that she made:

-Inspiration is definitely needed when making a film. You have to listen to what is important to you and why.

-On a longer film you will spend hundreds and hundreds of hours making it, so staying inspired is crucial.

-How much time do you have to tell your story? Are you making a short film? What do you need? An iPhone? Software? Do you have to hire people to help you?

-You have to love what you do, it can take 3-4 years for a film to go from script to the theater. There is the writing, the shooting, then post-production with editing and sound.

-In the earlier stages of brainstorming don’t hold back any ideas, just let your creative thinking flow.

-I was inspired to make documentary films because they provided me with an opportunity to learn about a person’s life or an event that happened. I love to continually learn.

-My favorite documentary that I helped produce was, “Straight Outta Hunter’s Point.” A whole section of San Francisco is build on toxic waste that the Navy dumped there. The cancer rate in Hunter’s Point is extremely high because of where it is situated.

-I’m in the early brainstorming stages for my next project. I hope to co-create something with my husband. I will be sure to let you know about it!

Students Win 1st Place at International Ocean Film Festival

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On March 11, four dynamic Grade 7 filmmakers won first place in the middle school student section of the 15th Annual International Ocean Film Festival held in San Francisco, California. Allie, Avery, Dani, and Helena, were recognized for their film, Strawbucks.

Strawbucks is a short film that interweaves detailed information connecting the use of plastic straws (in businesses like Starbucks), to the growing Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The film utilizes interviews with Hamlin students to create a powerful narrative, urging viewers to replace their plastic straws with ones that are more environmentally friendly (metal, glass).

You can watch the film below: