Anthony Carpenito originally signed up to be on the sound team.
The rising sophomore at Elsie Allen High School saw a flyer at school last year advertising a short movie being filmed on campus this summer. They were looking for student volunteers to do all manner of jobs.
Carpenito, a saxophone player and budding member of the school’s celebrated Mariachi program, thought he’d sign on to work on the sound for the film.
But leaders from Faba Films and The Joy Lab – the team behind “Life At Your School”, a film being premiered later this month – apparently saw something in Carpenito. Something like main character material. They offered him a lead role.
Even so, Carpenito paused. Then he listened to his mom.
Elsie Allen High School student Juan Vera on the set of “Life at Your School,” a student-led film that premieres on campus Aug. 21. (Aspen Lord Bailey)
Ced Hopkins, co-founder of Faba Films, on the set of “Life at Your School” filmed at Elsie Allen High School. The film will premiere Aug. 21. (Aspen Lord Bailey)
Elsie Allen High School students Lilly Fuentes, Erol Quadra, LaMichael Heath and Allan Pacio work on the set of “Life at Your School,” a feature film that will premiere on campus Aug. 21. (Aspen Lord Bailey)
Elsie Allen High School students Sean Donahue and Adhira Mercado on the set of “Life at Your School.” The feature-length film is slated to premiere on campus Aug. 21. (Aspen Lord Bailey)
Elsie Allen High School student Adhira Mercado works on the set of “Life at Your School” which premieres on campus Aug. 21. (Aspen Lord Bailey)
Elsie Allen High School student Sean Donahue and Faba Films co-founder Ced Hopkins on the set of “Life at Your School.” The feature-length film will premiere on campus on Aug. 21. (Aspen Lord Bailey)
A feature film, “Life at Your School” starred students from Elsie Allen High School and featured students in technical roles, including filming, lighting and advertising. The film premieres Aug. 21 on campus. (Aspen Lord Bailey)
“Life at Your School” was filmed in July on the campus of Elsie Allen High School. The feature-length film will premiere on campus on Aug. 21. (Aspen Lord Bailey)
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Elsie Allen High School student Juan Vera on the set of “Life at Your School,” a student-led film that premieres on campus Aug. 21. (Aspen Lord Bailey)
“My mom said, ‘You are already there. This happened for a reason,’” he said. “I’m so glad I took my mom’s advice … this was a really fun project.”
The idea behind the project was relatively simple. “Life At Your School” would take a skeleton script written by Faba Films co-founder Céd Hopkins, get input from school and Santa Rosa City Schools officials, and let the students lead the way. Meaning they would not only star in the film, but they would run cameras, set up lighting, figure out the sound and create a social media campaign to advertise the finished product.
The Lobos earned this right by getting the most votes in a Faba Films contest last school year. The Santa Rosa City Schools Board of Trustees OK’d the program, which didn’t cost the district any funds, last spring.
So a gaggle of selected Elsie Allen students spent every weekday in the month of July on campus filming scenes, making script edits, masterminding a social media campaign and putting their stamp on what Hopkins hopes will be the first in a series of school-based films illuminating what life is like for teens on school campuses across the country.
According to participants, the script deals with the ins and outs of sometimes typical hurdles in the life of a teen: peer pressure, social apprehension and stress. But it also touches on deeper issues including death and mental health struggles.
Hopkins wrote the script, but wasn’t wedded to it. She gave Elsie Allen higher-ups as well as Santa Rosa City Schools officials permission to tinker. She gave that same green light to students. If the words they were saying in front of the camera didn’t feel right, they’d change them.
Case in point?
Carpenito’s character was written as a jock who is suffering from crippling anxiety. He asked Hopkins if the script could be changed to make his character a musician, albeit one who suffers from the same issues.
“Me, personally, I do music, that is a passion of mine so I wanted to make this character as relatable as possible to me as a person,” he said.
And another lead actor, Max Barraza, said that more than once, he had to mess with the dialogue to make it sound real.
“The lingo between us is really different now,” he said of the final product. “We kind of switched the lingo up to something more modern for us.”
“We gave them autonomy to say, ‘I like the script this way,’” said Dr. Lynette Adams, founder of the Atlanta-based nonprofit The Joy Lab, which partnered with Faba Films on the project.
Adams met Hopkins last year at a film festival where both women bonded over the idea of helping students share stories of mental health and eventually supporting a student-led film that focused on the same. Adams, who was an adjunct professor at the University of Denver teaching nonprofit leadership, signed on to be an on-set behavioral scientist.
“Our mission really is to develop the next generation of joy-informed leaders and give them the confidence, resilience, connection and purpose that kind of allows them to lead themselves, their community and the world around them,” Adams said of The Joy Lab’s work.
And that work had a place in the every-day production of “Life At Your School,” she said.
“It really wasn’t just about making a movie,” she said. “‘Life At Your School’ was a student-driven campaign to talk about growing up in a body and a mind and a world that doesn’t always ask how you are doing.”
Hopkins said she wanted the film to explore weightier topics.
“For me, I wrote the script because when I lost a high school classmate of mine, I kept my mental health struggles and my anxieties to myself,” she said. “I just wish that we didn’t hide it and we could talk about it.”
The premise of the plot is that a group of students failed to turn in a final project and are forced into a summer-school like setting to complete it.
“Their final project is ‘Who are you really?’” said Kyle Woodruff, English teacher at Elsie Allen and the school liaison for the summer project.
Woodruff, too, spent her July “on set.” Limited by the extensive roofing project going on throughout the Bellevue Avenue campus, much of the production took place in the classrooms that house the agriculture program.
“Some days it was ‘Hey, we can’t film here, what can we do instead?’” she said. “They are problem-solvers.”
Elsie Allen principal Casey Cunningham sees the film as a unique way to showcase what students at Elsie can do.
“Our kids are being able to be creative in so many different ways,” he said. “It’s a way for our community to get to know our kids.”
And Cunningham tapped Woodruff, who came to Elsie Allen with some theater background, “the minute that we found out that we were picked.”
“She’s an amazing English teacher,” he said.
The crew was given breakfast and lunch each day, many of those meals thanks to donations from places such as BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, Panera Bread, Costco, Target and Hansel Auto Group, Woodruff said. Elsie teachers, too, sponsored meals.
Even without having seen the final product, Woodruff said the summer experience was moving.
“I love these kids,” she said. “Our community of students is remarkable and amazing. These kids need to have their voices out there and they need to have as many opportunities as possible.”
The movie, still in the editing phase, will be premiered at an event on the quad at Elsie Allen at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 21. The screening is free but donations will be accepted. Once completed, the movie will be available to stream for free on the Faba Films website.
“I hope this can reach a bunch of students because it’s a student film,” Barraza, a rising sophomore, said. “It’s for people who are struggling with mental health and people who aren’t. Basically everyone. It’s for people who aren’t so they can see the signs of stuff that can happen and they know that they can talk to them, even if they don’t know what is happening.”
“It’s something important.”
How to attend
“Life at Your School,” will premiere at Elsie Allen High School at 7:30 p.m., Aug. 21 in the quad. Viewing the film is free. Donations will be accepted. Food and drink will be available for purchase. For more information and to stream the Elsie Allen project, go to: www.fabafilms.com/student-series
You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Instagram @kerry.benefield.