Queens Students Transform into School of the Dead

by Kyle Rupprecht | Published June 11, 2009

A zombie movie made by an 8th grade class? Sounds like the next high-concept comedy from the makers of The School of Rock. Yet, believe it or not, this far-fetched scenario is actually true. This past January, three 8th grade teachers—Jared Beloff, Chad Dictenberg and Chris McLaughlin—received a $2,500 UTF Mini-Grant to integrate Media Arts with the English and Creative Writing curriculum at their school, I.S. 145 in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. What could be a better learning experience than having the students serve as cast and crew on a feature-length zombie movie titled School of the Dead?

The project has taken a full school year to create, including a lengthy period of pre-production in which the students began writing script ideas, developed fundraising projects and eventually storyboarded the final script. Along with a high-quality zombie movie, the class also hopes to assemble a documentary encompassing the entire production. After the movie is edited, a “red carpet” screening will be held followed by a Q&A with the precocious cast and crew.

An everyday 8th grade class suddenly transformed into flesh-eating zombies? Watch out I.S. 145, George Romero might be stealing your idea for his next zombie opus.

MM recently spoke with Beloff, Dictenberg and McLaughlin about this bold, innovative experiment to engage students through moviemaking.

Kyle Rupprecht (MM): Making a zombie movie obviously isn’t a typical middle school class project. After securing the grant, what made you decide to make a horror film, as opposed to a genre that might be more conventional for a school setting (like a coming-of-age story)?

Jared Beloff (JB): The idea for a horror film came out of the genre’s popularity with our students. When asked what type of books should be added to the class library, horror books were on the top of most of the students’ lists. The idea for a zombie movie started much later.

After we secured the grant we started brainstorming with students about horror story ideas that would fit a school setting, that we could create to seem authentic or real and ultimately would allow us to include as many students as possible. The biggest contributing factor, however, is the metaphorical quality of the zombie. In Dawn of the Dead, they are consumers like the people who hole up in the mall once were. In Shaun of the Dead, the zombies highlight how similar zombies are to humans (the only change being the hunger for human flesh). We analyzed these metaphors and came up with a story that actually is about “coming of age” in a society that is apathetic and uncaring; the zombies illustrate a sort of apathy in students and teachers that can quickly turn toward unreasonable or uncontrollable hunger. Our protagonist has to realize that he needs to care about the direction he is going in life and also to begin to care for others in order to survive in this world.

MM: Due to the bloody subject matter of School of the Dead, did you run into any problems with the school’s administration or parents? Were there any worries about being shut down before filming began?

Chad Dictenberg (CD): We approached this project with these problems in mind and have done our best to avoid them. Most of the gore is off-screen or implied through shadows, blood trails or victim’s perspectives. We put the emphasis on survival instead of attacking, beheading or spearing zombies, so there isn’t any of the sort of creative killing and head removal that you usually find in a zombie movie. Maybe we’ll save that for the sequel!

MM: Now that you’ve started filming, what has the experience been like? What have been some of the difficulties?

Chris McLaughlin (CM): The experience has been amazing. We were able to mobilize half of our 8th grade class (about 60 students) to participate in the project over two weekends of filming, not to mention the six months of fundraising, writing, storyboarding and make-up practice before production. We had the difficult job of both encouraging and managing student enthusiasm over extended periods of time. A typical day of filming started at 8:30 in the morning (some enthusiastic students arrived at 7:40 on a Saturday morning) and went on until around 4. One of the hardest parts was keeping students busy during the down-time when they weren’t applying makeup or weren’t shooting a scene until later.

You should take a look at our student blog for many of their reactions to the filming.

MM: When do you hope the film will be completed? After editing, any interest in submitting School of the Dead to student film festivals?

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Comment by jissell taveras on 6/11/09 at 1:30 pm: well i am part of the film and the experince has been great its like a once and a life time thing that not ever 8th grader will get....it’s really amazing
Comment by damaris o. on 6/11/09 at 2:55 pm: It was an awesome experience to be part of the film and I can’t wait til it comes out. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. This have been a wonderful once in a lifetime opportunity
Comment by Ms. Maharajh on 6/11/09 at 8:22 pm: How terrific! I am so proud of all of you in the Academy, and I am eagerly anticipating the red-carpet gala. Don’t forget to check out the “School of the Dead” front page article in the next issue of the “Pulitzer Times”!!!
Comment by sherab on 6/18/09 at 6:42 pm: i am a part of this flim and wait to c the movie! its going to be awesome...ive always wanting to get into acting so this was a great start and who knows can maybe lead me to other opportunites...i will always remember the days of shooting...and i gotta tell ya its not that all fun and games...once we had to do a secene alot of times from many angles...but in the end i know all that will pay off! i cant wait!
Comment by Ms. Russell on 6/19/09 at 9:06 pm: What a wonderful experience for your students! I wish there were more teachers like the three of you. Congratulations on the completion of the film.
Comment by joanne vasquez on 6/19/09 at 9:52 pm: i THOUGHT THIS MOVIE WAS amazing I was so excited to see it I enjoyed it a lot I love my teachers so much thanks to them and us and jesus/god and amen this movie wouldn’t be possible. Tis movie was so super and scary the tralier was unbelieveable.I am glad we finished before the year ended.
Comment by Audio Value on 6/23/09 at 10:13 am: The music production in the trailer is pretty good
Comment by Dan on 6/23/09 at 10:55 am: Where is the movie! How about an upload to your site or even youtube?
Comment by Jonathan Maberry on 6/23/09 at 11:41 am: This is great experience for kinds no matter what the subject. The fact that they chose zombies just means it’s a ton cooler.
Comment by Tyrone on 6/24/09 at 7:45 pm: This is a very creative activity. Hats off to all of them.
Comment by California Game Design College on 6/25/09 at 1:21 am: We put the emphasis on survival instead of attacking, beheading or spearing zombies, so there isn’t any of the sort of creative killing and head removal that you usually find in a zombie movie. Maybe we’ll save that for the sequel!
Comment by ekşi on 9/10/09 at 5:14 am: Zombie films are going up in my country, too. It is joyful for me because i love zombie.
Comment by best engineering colleges on 9/22/09 at 8:19 am: I need a summary of ‘The Dead School’ by Patrick McCabe?
Comment by Acupuncture Tampa FL on 11/04/09 at 11:13 am: i really find these zombie movies really sick.. i try to stay away from them!
Comment by enterprise transcription software on 11/05/09 at 11:17 am: Really? i find them interesting… which ones have you seen so far? which one you hated the most?