Written By: Micholas Reed
On April 11, the Alliance High School Video Production program held their 16th Annual Aviator Shootout where students competed with their films for $700 worth of prizes. The Aviator Shootout is a competition where students are split into teams and are tasked with writing, filming, and editing a short five to ten minute film within forty-eight hours. The event was originally started by Kyle Schwarz and Abbey Blake, in the spirit of a similar event hosted at Ohio University.
Along with their assigned group members, students were given at random a film genre, prop, camera technique, and a quote they had to creatively implement into the film. This year the students were split into four groups with their genres ranging from comedy to horror. On the first day of the competition students quickly began brainstorming what they were going to create by storyboarding, scriptwriting and assigning roles. After that was done, the students got to work filming.
“The Shootout is an opportunity for students to to be creative, collaborate and communicate with their peers, and present their work to the public in a fun way,” Says Chelsea Shar, the teacher of the Video Production Program, “This tradition is always a favorite when students look back on the program as well.”
After the students submitted the final draft of their films, it was time for the main event; a public screening of their films. A few hours before the audience would arrive, a group of judges with backgrounds in media production sat together in the Video Production studio and watched the films. These judges were Elijah Chunat (2023 graduate of the Video Production Program), Randi Groselli (Video Production Specialist), Mikey Rogers (Photographer, Videographer, and filmmaker), Seth Reber (Owner of Local Broadcast Network), and David Thomas (Local writer and filmmaker). They watched the student’s films multiple times and rated them in various categories, creativity, technique, strength of narrative and use of elements. With their reviews and rankings done, it was time for the doors to open for the students and the public to come in and watch the final version of the films on the big screen.
Sitting in the auditorium, students sat on the edge of their seats in excitement and nervousness. Chelsea Shar stood on stage and presented the films to the audience one by one and after all films were shown to the crowd with laughs and applause, Shar moved on to award the winners based on the rankings of the judges. Taking home the win for first place was Group 4 with their drama A Rose To Die For. The group consisted of Dawn Bacorn, Sam Bair, Zane Carlile, Elijah Sims, and Austin Mcllvain. In second came Group 2 with their horror film The Goblet, the group featured Conner Wilson, Riley Boettler, Triston Leech, and Logan Kuhn. In third place was Group 1 with their comedy film A Ride Through Time, the group had Lyla Brown, Kaitlyn Waite, David White, Taije Nicholson, and Ben Hall. And in fourth place was Group 3 with their action film Split, the group was made up of Karter Reese, Malcolm Slayers, Maven Boston, and Bryson McCord.
With the funding of many sponsors, students were provided with gifts corresponding with the place they came in. The gold level sponsors were David Phillippi and Mac’s Flooring, and in the silver level were Andrea Wise, J. Lawton West, White Physical Therapy, Carrie Phillippi, AutoZone, Hot Pots, The Troll Hole Museum, Mad Dogs and Crazy Cats Cat Cafe, and Judge Kristen Farmer.
The films are available for viewing on the AHS Video Production Youtube Channel.