Wimberley High School students produce state-qualifying short film

WIMBERLEY — A short film produced by a team of Wimberley High School students recently qualified for the UIL State competition.

The piece, entitled "Delivery,” was written and directed by junior Shepherd Carter and junior Isaiah Carrera was the assistant writer, assistant director and acted in the production. The five-minute story highlights a group of kids at a party who receive a mysterious package from a delivery person; the party quickly turns to chaos as the kids argue over whether to open the package or not.

According to WHS film production teacher Greg Dydalewicz, the idea for the project spawned from the student duo.

"They started working on the project in September with the concept and script writing," Dydalewicz said. "They actually had another idea in mind, but they did not think they had the time to get it going, so they switched to this production."

Dydalewicz said the students finished shooting the film during Christmas break and then had about three weeks to complete the editing and put final touches on the piece before submitting it to UIL. The camera operator was junior Hays Canter and boom operator was junior Marco Perez. Besides Carrera, the other actors in the film were: Josh Bober, Dante Faber-Smith, Julia Leonard, Adan Garcia, Macey Hollar and Desi Cross.

The film was one of six finalists in the 4A "Narrative" category at UIL's State Film Festival.

"I think the students did a great job with the time they had," Dydalewicz shared. "The cinematography, acting, editing, lighting and music were all done very well. As a group, they worked very well together to develop the final product," Complete results, as well as links to all finalist pieces are available at the UIL Film website.

WHS has a bit of history in the UIL state film contest. In 2019 two WHS films qualified for the state UIL contest, both in the Division 1 "Narrative" category. The productions were "Aberration" (written and directed by Braden Gary and Dylan Burne) and "The Bread Run" (written and directed by Declan Duggan.) In 2020, Duggan won a state championship in the Division 1 "Narrative" category for his short film entitled "Determination".

To watch WHS’s short film, visit bit.ly/3wIR3nJ. Full results, and links to submissions from other schools, can be found at bit.ly/3wGeXjT.