Short Film Club Produces “The Pencil 3: Left for Lead”

The short film club joined Susky’s list of student clubs and organizations this school year for those with passions in film-making and creative writing. 

Junior Kyle Marzullo and senior Alec Warner have taken the lead as directors of the club, creating it just prior to winter break.

“We would like to give filmmaking experience and opportunities to students here at Susquehannock while also having a significant amount of fun,” Warner said.

These opportunities are created by the club’s student leaders who work to run meetings throughout the week and coordinate filming sessions.

“The general structure of the club is fairly simple,” Marzullo said. “Alec and I are the directors. Alec serves the role of technical director; he handles more of the cameras, equipment, and editing. I serve as the more practical director. I send emails and take control of the more creative aspects of filmmaking. Unofficially, there are two lower positions. [Junior] Ian Davis is our secondary tech, and [junior] Brandon Boothe is the lead writer. These two will usually take charge of meetings if Alec and I are unable to attend.”

Warner and Marzullo have worked together in making films for a while, but they found their inspiration for the club this year.

“It all started the day of Kyle’s Latin project where he wanted to make a series of game shows that we could film and do a tournament,” Warner said. “This caused Kyle to wonder if we could do something film-related every week as we all enjoyed working on the project together.”

Marzullo explains that the club’s foundation stemmed from his and Warner’s previous projects together.

“Both Alec and I love to make films, and when we made our original film, ‘The Pencil 2: The Theifquel,’ we had a lot of fun and we wanted to make more,” Marzullo said. 

The pair moved from making their own projects to wanting to involve others in the film process.

“Originally, it was just the two of us helping out on projects here and there,” Marzullo said. “After working on so many different projects, it gave me the idea, ‘what if we got a bunch of us together to do this during eleventh block,’ and after that, we did what we needed to do to create a club.”

Currently, the club is working on finalizing a Winter Olympic Recap as well as producing their longest film yet.

“Right now we are working on a really big project: ‘The Pencil 3: Left for Lead,’” Marzullo said. “Originally, we wanted to do a short project to get everyone in high spirits coming back from break with a 10-minute movie. That has since spiraled and predictions are set that this will be about 20-30 minutes in length, so that’s pretty exciting. It’s going to be action-packed and we are really having a good time making it. We are about to begin the filming process, and we expect it to be done by late February or early March.”

Warner remarks that the process of making a short film is more extensive than one may think.

“Making a short film has a few main steps being, idea brainstorming, plot development, storyboards/shot lists, filming, footage filtering, editing [and the] final export,” Warner said.

Marzullo adds that the club’s largest obstacle in the process is time.

“Short films take a lot of time; a lot of hours are put in towards storyboarding and filming, especially if there’s dialogue,” Marzullo said. “Storyboarding is really the part that takes time; listing out each individual shot you want, especially for longer films, really takes time. Most of the time, though, all the work pays off.”

Short Film Club has roughly 15 members with varying levels of experience in filming, writing scripts and editing.

“We are always looking for new members,” Marzullo said. “It’s preferred that they have experience with filming and editing, but it’s not required.”

Any students interested in joining the club can contact Marzullo at [email protected], Warner at [email protected] or adviser Tim Hare at [email protected].