Although sophomore Natasha Lasky does her magic behind the camera instead of in front, she still emerges as the star in movie- making teacher Tripp Robins’ class. Despite it being her first year in the moviemaking course, this is her second year participating in an out of school moviemaking course. Lasky’s experience doesn’t stop there, as her interest in movies has facilitated her to make them since she was young. “I guess my interest in movies started, strangely enough, when my mom put me in a Photoshop and web design class when I was 12. The way the room was situated, the web design kids were on one side, and kids from a moviemaking class were right next to us. While I would be bored out of my mind, putting Photoshop filter after Photoshop filter on some picture I found on the internet, I would look over at the movie kids, and they would be running around shooting music videos and making people explode in After Effects. I thought to myself, ‘that looks way more fun,’” Lasky said. Since that class, she became increas- ingly involved with movies in the Menlo middle school. “In middle school, I knew I wanted to make comedies, but I also knew I couldn’t pull off making a comedy that was actually good, with well-written dialogue and that sort of thing. So I just made alien movies with terrible special effects, hoping that it would be so cheesy that I could make my friends laugh. It worked,” Lasky said. It has been this interest that helped Lasky create outstanding work in the class.
Lasky has begun to explore more into the moviemaking world, learning not just about comedy-shorts, but also about other aspects that go into the film industry. “I like being in production, the actual process of filming things. It’s stressful because you have a time limit, and you’ve essentially been prepar-
ing for that one day of filming for weeks, maybe even months. […] But that pressure is also fun in its own way. […] It’s a rush of adrenaline,” Lasky said. Lasky has also been attracted to the constant obstacles a producer has to over come. “It’s impossible to shoot a film without something going wrong, Whether it’s that it suddenly starts raining, or that the actors don’t show up on time, or that the lights explode mid-take. You try to prepare for these kind of things, but at the end of the day, you don’t know what’s going to go wrong. So being in production is a lot about thinking on your feet,” Lasky said.
Lasky’s passion has resulted in incredible work for not only her, but also her class- mates. Junior Jacob Olian thought that Lasky’s work was beneficial to everyone in her moviemaking class. “Even though she wasn’t in moviemaking last year, her work is still outstanding,” Olian said. He also believed that
her knowledge about film cutting helped him learn more in the class as well. “I can work with her to understand more about aspects of filming and cutting that I didn’t know before. I can also learn different styles of movies that can in turn help me improve mine,” Olian said.
Despite her hard work ethic, knowledge about filming, and constant devotion to the class, Lasky still thinks it’s difficult to make a good movie. “To make a good movie, that’s basically impossible. I think this is because there are so many things you have to know to make a good movie. You have to under- stand photography, like light, composition, and also writing, like story and character arc and dialogue. You also have to know how to give directions to actors,” Lasky said. In the end, despite all the difficulties of moviemak- ing, the dedication Lasky has shown to the class has benefitted her and her classmates and resulted in several outstanding films.
