Making a Scene with Lights, Camera, Education

Young teenagers sit at their desks, smiling and attentive. This is a film class at the arts-oriented Indian River Charter High School. The students are filming a scene from the 2003 Jack Black comedy School of Rock. There are some giggles between takes, but when the camera rolls, they are all business.

“We are moving kids around and taking various angles, trying to make a class of eight look like a full class of 20,” says Kelly Dixon, who teaches film, photography, and television. “I tell kids, ‘Pay attention to every aspect of shooting a scene. If you are on camera, don’t just scroll on your phone while a shot is being set up.”

Dixon and her colleague, acting teacher Fednike Nozistene, asked administrators to schedule film and acting classes at the same time so students can collaborate. “My behind-the-camera kids can see the challenges working with actors successfully, how and why to change a shot, and actors get an understanding of the nuts and bolts of designing a shot, the angles, the rule of thirds, etc.” Learning the ropes of filmmaking is hard unless there are resources, mentors, and lots of time.

David Yakir, executive director of the Vero Beach Film Festival, has ambitious plans to match the success of the festival, recently named one of the top 100 film festivals in the world from the 14,000 considered, with giving back to the community through education. “We started Film Vero to offer professional and amateur artists useful seminars and workshops to hone their craft,” he says. “This educational program is about enabling creative expression, teaching technical skills, digital skills, critical thinking, and problem solving.”

Since Vero Beach already has a thriving school with a robust arts program, Indian River Charter High School was the logical place to start bringing young people on board with the tools they need to succeed. “We are calling the outreach program to schools ‘Lights, Camera, Education,’” says Yakir. “Film can expand the way students think, to increase their cultural awareness.”

Yakir invited students from IRCHS to last year’s seminars run by film pros. Then, he brought the pros directly to them. Sebastian Bois is an IRCHS alumnus who stays close with his instructors and collaborators. “I got a lot of good advice from the pros that the film festival exposed us to, like how to stay focused and not give up,” says Bois. “They talked about their experiences and showed us other pathways to being in the film industry besides just directing.” To that end, Bois is pursuing a digital media degree at Indian River State College to learn all he can and keep his options open.

Last year, the film students remade the 1968 cult horror classic Night of the Living Dead. Joe Brent runs the digital arts program at the school and oversaw the production. “I have students who want to focus on the visual effects, students who want to be behind the camera, students who want to be in front of the camera,” he says. “If you want to make a film here, we have a spot for you.”

It was Bois’ senior year, and he took the helm as director. It was an all-out effort, with Bois taking on additional tasks such as running the sound, working the camera at times, and acting as the head zombie. This kind of immersion was something the students learned from the pros—to be ready to contribute in any fashion when asked.

With its new relationship with the Vero Beach Film Festival in mind, the school decided to host a screening and invite Yakir. “It was tense,” says Brent, who helped arrange the screening for his students’ film. “We finished it five minutes before screening. One hundred people were walking to their seats while we were still figuring out how to play the file,” he recalls. “David Yakir came, and he liked what he saw, so my kids were inspired to submit more of their work to the festival. It’s reciprocal; they give us valuable access to pros in the industry, and we create work for the festival.”

Shelby Andrews is a junior at IRCHS. She was a key creator on the Night of the Living Dead film and is now working on an original short film for the 2025 festival. “It’s called School Spirits, based around this school and some unexplained, ghostly events that have happened here,” she says. For Andrews, the filmmaking allure is simple. “I love being with a good group of people, telling a story together, having fun creating,” she says. “You tend to have a mindset, but when you are collaborating, and if someone else has an interesting take, it might be something completely different than what you envisioned, but you realize it will fit perfectly into the vision as a whole. This is one of the things we learned from the industry professionals from the film festival: nobody should feel territorial about their work.”

One such working professional is also an educator. Mark Schimmel is an accomplished commercial director and a professor at the University of Central Florida. Yakir tapped him for the Lights, Camera, Education program as a presenter to the IRCHS film students. Schimmel did not have access to industry pros when he was a high school student, but he certainly sees the immense value for kids at that grade level.

“We can show that it’s possible to get there,” he says, “but paying dues is real. I tell my graduating students at UCF, ‘You studied directing, but you aren’t a director. You may have studied producing, but you aren’t a producer. Those kinds of positions in the industry take a long time to earn. You are always going to be striving to earn a position on a set, no matter how much you have done or who you have worked with.’”

Schimmel’s career started with a top ad agency in New York. He began making short films in his limited free time and won a silver medal at the Chicago International Film Festival. His first time on set directing a national commercial was eye-opening. “At this level, I had no idea what everyone did or what the protocols were, so I listened a lot and learned a lot.”

Schimmel’s presentation to the IRCHS students focused on writing. “Everything is about story. Even a commercial is a story in 30 seconds or less. I told them, ‘Train yourself to come up with great ideas. Get a journal. Write everything down from your daily life. The more ideas you generate, the more possibility you will write something great.’”

Yakir’s vision for the Vero Beach Film Festival includes more outreach and education. “I would like to see us really build out our educational programs, our filmmaker programs, and our community programs,” he says. “We have been carefully watching this Lights, Camera, Education program for film students to see how we can take this further. We plan to dedicate a day to student films at one of the venues we use during this year’s festival.”

Brent is grateful for the interest of the Vero Beach Film Festival. “We hope they like us,” he laughs. “We want to see the Lights, Camera, Education program keep going. Being involved with this community, talking to pros the film festival brings in, making relationships with people in the industry, we can’t put a price on that for these students.”