What makes a good movie good? How do we tell stories through music? How do you subvert the audience’s expectations in a film? Film teacher Mr. Kellen Blair, who has worked at Riverdale for 12 years, explores all these questions and more in his classes. Riverdale offers two film classes: “Introduction to Film” and “Advanced Film,” both taught by Mr. Blair. Mr. Blair also teaches “Drama 8” and “Introduction to Playwriting,” a course that is a prerequisite for the film classes. Outside of school, he is a writer and has had many successful musicals produced.

Mr. Blair first knew he wanted to be a writer after he watched the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. As he puts it, “If you had [the movie] on in the background, you’d never know it was a comedy. But when you really sit down and pay attention, itís one of the funniest movies in the world. I loved the way Kubrick was able to create that perfect balance in terms of tone.”

After studying film at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University, a prestigious film school in Southern California, Mr. Blair wrote (and continues to write) many successful musicals, including Murder for Two, which has been performed Off-Broadway and around the world. His experience as a professional in the industry offers students unique perspectives on the filmmaking process, and his connections in the theater world present students with resources they typically would not have access to. For instance, a typical year of advanced film class involves a field trip to Midtown where students hold auditions with over 30 professional actors who are eager to act in their short films. This is a particularly thrilling experience, Mr. Blair notes, because itís the moment “when the film students realize they're doing something that's bigger than just a class assignment. They’re making a cool piece of art that people want to be a part of!”

Film class embraces a wide range of skills, interests, and levels of experience. Mr. Blair explains that film class “combines a lot of different ways of expressing yourself into one unified way of telling a story. If you love writing, but you also love photography, and you also love acting, and you also love working with actors and you also love finding music for things, film class requires all of those things combined.” The prospect of learning this wide array of skills is what attracts many students to film classes. “I chose film class because it’s a nice way to learn new topics and techniques, watch movies, and gain new perspectives,” says junior Andrew Noah.

Film class is also a place where students can make mistakes. According to Mr. Blair, one time a student spent an entire weekend filming their movie - only to show up to class and realize that none of it was recorded. Apparently, they accidentally pressed “record” at the start of the day, and then every time they said “action” and thought they were pressing “record,” they were actually stopping the camera. The result was that they filmed everything that day except for the scenes in their movie. But Mr. Blair considers that mistake memorable, not so much for the student’s error but more because of the way “that student got right back out there to make their movie the next weekend! It was the truest example of grit and perseverance I’ve seen in class!”

For Mr. Blair, storytelling is at the heart of all aspects of filmmaking, and it is the primary skill he hopes students will acquire and utilize outside of the classroom. “I think the two basic skills of being able to tell a good story and engage an audience will be valuable no matter what you do in life. If you’re a lawyer, you're going to need to engage the jury and tell a convincing story. If you're in the boardroom, trying to pitch a new product to your board, you're going to need to be able to tell a story that's going to make them want to hear every word you say,” he says. 

At the end of each school year, students demonstrate their storytelling skills by sharing their films with an audience at the Riverdale Country School Film Festival. Students have the opportunity to win awards such as “Best Cinematography,” “Best Design,” and “Best Film.” For Mr. Blair, the film festival is one of the most meaningful parts of teaching. He explains, “There’s always at least one student who wins an award that wasn’t expecting to win an award. Sometimes they get a little teary or a little choked up. Itís that moment when somebody who maybe didn’t consider themselves a filmmaker or consider themselves very artistic has that realization that they made something valuable, meaningful and worthwhile to someone else, to an audience full of people. It’s been really fun to watch those moments inspire students to pursue filmmaking or storytelling in some capacity beyond this class.”

Regardless of whether a student is initially enthusiastic or knowledgeable about filmmaking, Riverdaleís film classes allow them to develop a passion for film and fully explore the art form.