After months of anticipation the Preuss drama department has finally released their Shakespeare fest film.

The film began pre-production in January where the writing team headed by Angelina Abdelrahman began working on the script while other groups such as cinematography, costumes, set design, and others worked on orders for costumes props as well as created mood boards for inspiration for how the film would look.

The film is the drama department’s take on the classic Shakespeare play Macbeth, where the drama department blended the story with film noir themes and altered the story so it would have an original flare that would breathe new life into the classic work.

Film noir is a style of cinematography style from the 1940s that was mainly used on crime thrillers that made use of black and white film with common themes being mystery,

“Every year a different theme is incorporated into the Shakespeare fest, like in past it was the wild west and the 60s, but this year we chose film noir because we thought the dark and mysterious themes would work really well with the dramatic story of Macbeth,” said script writer, Nova Solan (‘24).

The production value has also gone up, with previous productions being filmed on cellphone cameras and edited by Mr. Rocca himself, compared to this year where the students had access to real video cameras with tripods, sound equipment, and a larger budget for costumes and props.

“I really enjoyed using an actual camera,” said cinematographer Miguel Santiago (‘24). “It looks way better than when we would just use phones in the last movies we made.”

Many felt it was an odd time to have a premiere on a Wednesday during school, but the drama department felt that that would be the ideal time for the maximum number of students to attend after struggles with attendance in previous years. The decision paid off as the film was screened to an audience of over 300 students. This was helped by many teachers bringing their classes to watch the film during the 4th block.

At the end of the screening there was a Q&A with attending members of the cast and crew who answered questions about the production of the film and anything else the audience wanted to know.

Overall, the premiere of the Shakespeare festival went well with great applause at the end from the audience who enjoyed the film, leaving us to wonder what’s next from the drama department.