Naugatuck Students to Premiere "Life@NHS" Documentary

A group of journalism students at that spent the last school year creating a documentary are set to premiere their work next month.

On Nov. 2, the high school’s Journalism II class will showcase their 20-minute short film, Life@NHS. The premiere is 7 p.m. and tickets are $2 each.

The students spent several months last year creating the film, according to Caroline Messenger, the class teacher and member of the English Department.

Messenger said the documentary looks at the school through the eyes of freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors who consented to one-on-one interviews about their experiences, their concerns and their lives as teenagers.

“Teachers, administrators and others also were interviewed for this piece in order to make it a complete and well-rounded look at what it means to be a high school student today,” Messenger said in an email to Patch. “They filmed it, edited it, cut it, created the voiceovers and obtained permission to use music from a local band called A Will Away, featuring Naugatuck High alumni.”

Senior Halley Lisieski, the class' editor of the school newspaper who worked on the video last year, said the group focused in on a pair of students from each grade. Lisieski said she assisted in filming while two now-graduates, Natalie Ruella and Colby Edwards, did the editing.

"The journalism class as a whole took a huge part in the concepts, filming, editing," she said. "There were probably 10 people max."

There was a "lot of running around" for the journalism students, who would only have 44 minutes a class period to do some of the filming, Lisieski said. She said most of the actual editing, however, occurred outside of school.

Despite the time commitment Lisieski said the experience was "really rewarding."

"Especially when people are talking about it as much as they are right now," she said, noting the ticket sales.

Some of the students who partook in the creation of the documentary have since graduated, however some will be attendance that night, Messenger said.