A group of Bryan County High School students directed and produced a short film earlier this year called A COUNTRY FUNERAL. The film script won second place in the Alabama Rocket City Short Film Festival and has been selected to be included in the Lift-Off Sessions for First-Time Filmmakers festival at Pinewood Studios in London.

The school recently opened the Digital Media and Film Studies in their course offerings.

Dr. Joseph Frew-Miller guided the students in the filmmaking process, but the film belonged to the students, he said. 

The high school film crew directed, filmed, edited, and produced the short film. It’s the story of a matriarch who seems to be mentally drifting away but is a mastermind in preparing for the family’s future. Professional actors such as Langley Cornwell, Dreena McKenzie Vickers, Evan Sibert, Fleming Moore, Paulette Walker, and Josh Rutgers were hired for the leading roles. Mason Zipperer, a student at BCHS, and Cherard Freeman, an athletics coach, also played characters in the film.

The students have entered A COUNTRY FUNERAL in several other film festivals and are already preparing for two films to be produced when they return to school in the fall.

Students completing the three courses in Digital Media and Film at BCHS will take a certification exam where they can earn college credit for the course and become nationally certified in TV Production and Broadcast Journalism. Frew-Miller said he just wants to provide these students who have a passion for filmmaking every opportunity he can to make them highly marketable employees in the field.