Freshman Lauren Effertz and junior Alex Robbins were finally able to showcase their talents in a Story Board competition where they featured their individual films, “The Truth of Being Verity” and “Previously on Pinocchio,” at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis.

“Storyboard is a filming company basically for the youth around the Twin Cities area,” said Ian Hamilton. “They try to promote the art of story telling through the use of film.”

Hamilton has been working as a personal assistant for Story Board, trying to raise awareness of the program by answering people’s questions and giving them some of the background information.

The overall goal of Story Board is to give students the ability to devise their own stories and translate them into film. “They just want younger generations to discover it because they want us to go out and achieve our goals in film making and make it better,” said Hamilton.

All of the movies made by the students in Story Board had to relate to the story of Pinocchio in some way, and their final products were put into a competition for a $500 top prize.

Effertz’s film was about a girl who teleports every time she says a lie, while Robbins’s film was derived from the show “24” and has Pinocchio just released from prison encountering a giant snake and weasel-catching farmer.

Having a longtime passion for the industry, Effertz discovered Story Board by watching the news at age 13, and she knew it was the thing for her. “I really like looking at all of the different aspects of film making and being able to apply it in my own way and kind of coming up with my own story. and Actually getting to see it as a final product on the screen is really nice,” said Effertz.

Through Story Board, both Robbins and Effertz learned many of the skills used to create a film. “I’ve been working on my film for about three weeks,” said Robbins, “I learned how to write a storyboard and how to take an idea and adapt it into another one.”

“It was really fun…I wrote the script myself, I filmed it myself, I edited it all by myself, so it was pretty crazy, but it was a lot of fun being able to play all of the different roles,” said Effertz.

Story Board was founded by Sarah Morreim, Ann Sorenson, and Grant Wood, and through their offered program, students receive an internship experience that provides them with the essential information of film making. They show and teach all of the behind-the-scenes work and design, giving Effertz and Robbins the tools to produce their own movies.