The subject of a Nacogdoches High School film submitted to the UIL contest for 5A and 6A schools may have started out as the students joking amongst themselves, but nothing was laughable about the results.
NHS earned a top 20 finish among more than 600 entries, eventually placing sixth overall and just missing the state-level competition that will take place next week in Austin.
Atlantis Thomas, Grant Leonard, Otis Tutt, and Trenton Channel produced the film, “Are Honey Bees Really That Important,” a seven-minute examination of the role bees play in nature. Travis Squyres is the teacher in the AV 2 course.
For the film, Atlantis served as narrator and interviewer on the production, while Grant provided editing, and Otis and Trenton served as camera operators.
After jokingly suggesting honey bees as a subject, the four seniors conducted research into the topic before drawing up a plan. They interviewed experts – Kelsey Graham, a research entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Phillip Donkersley, a landscape scientist at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom – using a teleconferencing app. They also visited Elzner Farms in nearby New Summerfield, talking with Megan Elzner about working with beehives. It was there, that the crew put on protective clothing and got up close and personal with the bees.
Producing a seven-minute video proved problematic, Squyres said. For one thing, there were roughly eight hours of footage after the interviews and visit to the bee farm. That left Grant with about a month of work to reach the length limit imposed by the UIL.
The film was submitted to UIL just before Christmas break, Grant said, and students were notified on Feb. 2 of their scores.
The four students work with the production team that provides video for the scoreboard at Dragon Stadium.
CLICK HERE to watch the video.