Mary Lopez's Film Explores Paranoia in High School

Mary Lopez created a film for this years MBHS third annual film fest her film “is about experiencing paranoia and how you feel like something is watching you or coming after you,” She says that with the pressures students feel in high school, students often feel like there is always someone watching over them and judging them. Mary is aiming to relay that feeling to her audience, and hopes that high school students can resonate with her perception of paranoia in her film. As a freshman she did not know she had a passion for filmmaking, but she stated, “I love watching cinematography videos and I find them so calming and I wanted to learn how I could make something like that.” As a student in the Intro to Video class, the teacher Ms. Conlin introduced the class to the Filmfest. During this class she has learned how to come up with creative and unique topics, film, edit sound and video, compose transitions, write scripts (though her silent film does not have one), and put everything together to create a film then send it out to the media. 

Her silent film will feature herself only as the producer and actor, except for a single scene where her friend plays a role. Mary says, “I like silent films where you only have natural sounds and you have to read the character’s expressions to understand how they feel. I also think it adds to the topic of paranoia.” With the limited amount of time she has had to create this film, her one goal was to create something she was proud of, that told an important story about an everyday experience that is often overlooked. Mary is an inspiring film maker and hopes to continue film making in her future careers and schooling.