CAMERAS have been rolling at Knox Academy as youngsters make movie magic.

Caitlin Wright and Rhona Taylor, S6 pupils at the school, formed the school’s Film Club last September after picking up an international award in 2012.

The two youngsters were keen to pass on their film-making skills before they leave the school in the summer.

And they have started passing on their passion through a special film.

Caitlin told the Courier: “We held a short assembly for the third years encouraging them to apply and we received many applications.

“From those, we selected 10 aspiring filmmakers to start the group.

“We encouraged each of the Film Club members to write their own film script, they presented them to the group and then they voted on which script they wanted to produce.

“After further script development, the group cast their film in a round of in-school auditions.

“We ran a few workshops on basic camera techniques and they created storyboards for the script to be used on the days of filming.” Then, at the end of last month, it was a case of lights, camera, action as filming got under way.

Caitlin, who is studying Advanced Higher Modern Studies, French and English, praised the budding thespians for their performance but was keeping tight-lipped on the film’s plot.

She said: “The pupils were really enthusiastic and eager to see the project they had been working on come to life.

“We still have a few scenes left to film and edit but we are hoping to have a completed film by the end of April to show at Knox Academy.

“Their completed film looks set to be a brilliant piece of work.” Caitlin and Rhona were among a group of eight pupils from the Haddington secondary school who created a documentary in 2012 entitled ‘Think of Life – Put Down the Knife’.

The four-and-a-half minute film looks at knife crime and highlights its devastating effects on lives – on victims, perpetrators and families.

The main message is that despite knife crime being illegal it is a more common problem than some might think and that “its effects can shatter lives and leave scars deeper than the skin”.

Rhona, who is applying to study film at university, told the Courier: “Making our Kid Witness News (KWN) film [about knife crime] not only introduced us to working as a film crew, but opened many doors into gaining filmmaking experience.

“Once a Knox team has released a film publicly they usually get requests from various community organisations, not to mention in-school projects such as filming concerts and the annual panto to film.

“I’m applying to study filmmaking at university this year, and my application would not nearly be as strong if I hadn’t had the basis of KWN and all the experience that followed.

“This is what we want for the third years in our team, to give them the foundations and open those same doors to filmmaking.”