BERLIN – Student stars walked the red carpet last week as Berlin Intermediate School debuted a student-produced movie to celebrate a schoolwide reading project.
On Friday, children who spent the school year working on a big screen adaptation of “Fish in a Tree” smiled and waved amid cheers from their fellow students as they walked a red carpet through the Berlin Intermediate School (BIS) cafeteria. The movie, made by drama students in the BIS after-school program, was created after the entire school read “Fish in a Tree” as part of the “One School, One Book” program.
“It’s a uniting thing as a school that we’re all reading the same book and getting something out of it,” Principal Ryan Cowder said. “We read the book at the beginning of the year and the movie at the end of the year is kind of a reminder that this is what the whole year was about — the fact that everybody’s unique and that’s what makes this world an interesting place.”
Last year, students participated in “One School, One Book” by reading “Wonder.” When a movie based on the book was released, they all went to see it at the end of the school year.
“We didn’t have a culminating event for this book,” Cowder said. “Dr. Feagans, our drama teacher, created a ‘Fish in a Tree Academy’ for the afterschool program … She wrote a script, they memorized lines and then they did the filming and put together a whole movie for the book.”
Sixth-grader Riley Gannon said students worked on the film for months. She played the part of Ally, the main character in “Fish in a Tree.”
“She is going through trouble at school,” Gannon said. “She’s dyslexic but no one knows and she gets bullied for not being able to read.”
As she waited for showtime Friday, Gannon said the hardest part of the movie-making process had been devoting hours after school multiple days a week to the project. She was eager to show the finished product to the rest of the school.
“It’s sixth grade so everybody’s worried about popularity and stuff but I’ve made so many friends filming this I don’t really care about what’s going to happen out there,” she said.
Her peers were also looking forward to sharing the movie with the rest of the student body.
“It turned out well and I’m glad to be a part of it,” sixth-grader André Williams said.
Though he hadn’t planned to participate in drama this year, Williams said he couldn’t resist the chance to be on the big screen.
“I lost my taste in drama after fourth grade because of an incident that I’m not going to speak about and only Riley knows right now — and she’s not going to tell anybody if she wants to be a good friend — but I just wanted to be a part of the movie,” he said.
He believes that the movie will reinforce the message of “Fish in a Tree” for BIS students.
“It helps them be aware,” he said. “It’s about kids with disabilities and bullying which is a big issue because we’re still developing.”
Fifth-grader Jordan Carrigan agreed.
“It teaches you to stand up for yourself and be confident in yourself,” she said.
Carrigan said the entire film-making process had been a lot of fun.
“I always wanted to be part of something big,” she said. “My mom says I’m a drama queen.”
Lylah Pryor, a fifth-grader, said she’d done a little acting in elementary school and had been inspired to try out for the movie after watching her brother in Macbeth at Stephen Decatur High School.
“My brother, he’s really good at acting,” she said. “I kind of look up to him sometimes.”
Students Luke Braciszewski and Thomas Paddack said they’d enjoyed joining the cast because it was a chance for them to try something new.
“We struggled with the filming in the beginning,” Bracizewski said.
Paddack agreed.
“The hardest part was remembering our lines and trying not to laugh while filming,” he said.
Cowder said was pleased that the book, and the resulting movie, had tied students and staff together.
“There are a lot of life lessons for kids, for teachers,” he said. “Everybody got something out of that book.”