Caleb Katz is a senior at Glendale High School, who has been in the cinematography program at GHS since the 8th grade. He is also a member of the 2022 Yearbook staff. In his free time, Caleb plays video games and works on his own personal projects. For this year’s Variety Show, Caleb directed the short film “Life After Living”, which features the GHS ASB class.

How did you first get into cinema?

There was a really badly advertised after school program in middle school. And when I was in 8th grade, I think my mom found the flyer, and she asked me if I wanted to do it. And I was like, yeah I want to do it. I want to make movies. 

So, I had to walk from Wilson [Middle School] all the way here and stay after school with Mr. Kirkwood and some other people. And they all ended up dropping out. I’m the only survivor of the program. But because I took it in middle school, I was able to skip [the course Cinematography] 1-2 and go straight [into] 3-4 as a freshman, and now I’m in a class that doesn’t exist. 

What inspired the creation of “Life After Living”?

So, basically my teacher approached me like, “Hey, I just got the script for the ASB video. Would you want to direct it?” It’s very stressful… but I think what [we had] in the end is… good. Something worth watching. 

And without spoiling too much of the story, there’s a lot of inside jokes of our school that I hope a lot of people will get and laugh about. A lot of it has to do with Mr. Livingston and his announcements. Again without spoiling too much – there’s a big twist at the end. It’s…really cool and exciting and I think it’s really funny. 

Without spoiling anything, how would you describe the plot of the movie?

It’s a normal day for Mr. Livingston, but it progressively gets weirder and more absurd. And there [are] little things he’s noticing that are wrong with his reality, that slowly get to a major reveal towards the end.” 

Were there any on set problems while filming?

Shooting in the hallways was horrible, because there’s always someone walking by and staring into the camera. We had to have several takes, because we had good scenes with good acting, but people were staring into the camera. Shooting on an active campus is really hard. 

One of our actors, Brandon, got so tired of wearing the same clothes every day, because it’s supposed to be the same day in the movie, but we shot for over a week. So he had to wear the same clothes for a week, and he hated it.

How did it feel sitting in the auditorium as “Life After Living” premiered during the Variety Show?

Before the show, I was extremely nervous. I was terrified [that] it wasn’t going to make sense or be funny. But after that thunderous applause, I couldn’t stop smiling the whole night. It made all my hard work pay off and it felt amazing.

If you would like to watch “Life After Living”, please click HERE! 

We wish the best to Caleb as he graduates from GHS in June and hopefully continues his film career in the years to come. If you are interested in being a part of the Cinematography program at our school, please talk to your counselor or contact Mr. Kirkwood at [email protected].