Students from the junior class huddled together through the chilly night as the movie “Elf” played on the projector.
On Dec. 7, an activity called Junior Movie Night took place near the student union. The event started at 5 p.m. on the Friday night before dead week, and food was provided for anyone who attended.
The main purpose of Junior Movie Night went beyond just having fun with peers from the same grade. The movie was intentionally scheduled before finals and dead week.
“As finals week approaches, we wanted to bond as a class while giving students an opportunity to de-stress,” said Rachel Amir Chatman, one of the junior vice presidents.
Anthony Sison, the junior class president, was in charge of the event and planned the activity with the help of the junior vice presidents.
“This [event] is a junior class function meaning that this is something that the class officers are doing exclusively for juniors. [My job] is to make sure that everything is going to run smoothly and that people are aware that this is happening,” Sison said.
Sison and the junior vice presidents started planning the activity two weeks prior to the event and made many efforts to it to a success.
“We brainstormed together, we talked, and we secured logistics. We actually spoke with administration to see if they allowed it, which they did. It was equal parts planning and equal parts execution. We also recently been doing a lot of publicizing to make sure that everyone was aware of what’s happening,” Sison said.
However, preparation was not a smooth ride for the class officers. There were many obstacles that they had to overcome. One challenge was the fact that the movie night was during the month of December.
Sison said, “We know that it’s going to be cold, so we have to make sure that people are suited to be in the cold weather. There could be a chance of rain, but we made sure to choose a date that didn’t have a chance of rain or had at least a very low chance.”
The officers were not the only people that contributed their time to this event. Andres Raddavero, a junior and the Media Commision supervisor, provided technical support.
“For the junior movie night this year, the Media Commission and I are running sound and setting up the audio-visual [necessities], which is part of media job that we have in ASB,” said Raddavero.
Fortunately, for the officers, the night was clear of rain. The pie, popcorn, and hot cocoa had already been set up for students to enjoy. Many of them showed up half an hour late, therefore, the movie’s start time had to also be delayed.
Once the night came to an end, multiple juniors had positive responses.
“I enjoyed the event, and I had fun because all my friends are here,” said Kayla Poon, a junior.
Students were willing to give up time out of their night to spend it at this exclusive event.
“Honestly, the junior class is so tight that you’re willing to sacrifice time to spend it with each other,” said Griffin Soelberg, a junior.
In spite of the fact that the weather was not the most comfortable, the class officers still thought that their expectations were met.
“Overall, I think that the event went very well. Although we did not get as many people to attend as we had hoped for, I think it was still fun for all those involved. I do think that it was successful for what it was,” said Nathaniel Rutter, one of the junior vice presidents.
However, the officers believed that there could have also been some major adjustments regarding preparation.
“We probably should have advertised it a bit more because most of our announcing was very last-minute. We also could have chosen a week where the forecast did not predict any rain so that people wouldn’t feel that they would be taking a risk of going and it raining,” Rutter said
Chatman also concluded that the advertising process could have been tweaked to increase attendance. Her ideas would be applied to future planning.
“If we could plan this event again, I think we should have taken the approach of personally reach out to specific groups rather than focusing so much on flyers and posters,” Chatman said.
Two teachers were chaperoning at the event and watched the movie along with the students. Eva Parker, a Spanish teacher and one of the adult chaperones, had a great time but thought that there was still room for improvement.
“I thought the event was successful. Everyone that attended had a good time watching ‘Elf’ with their friends,” Parker said. “If I was in charge of this event, I would have had it inside, a week earlier for better attendance, and serve more of Buddy’s [a character in the movie] favorite foods.”
All in all, the event served its purpose by successfully replenishing the students before a stressful week.
Sison said, “We’ve always had a fascination for movie nights. We wanted to do something different for the holiday season, so we thought, ‘Why not try to do a holiday movie night outside, play a holiday classic, and make it free so everyone is equally available to do it.’”
