Organization – Heights Middle School Shorts

June 21, 2022

HMSS Partners with 2022 Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival to Feature 6 HMSS Films

Heights Middle School Shorts is thrilled to announce that they have formed a partnership with the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Foundation to feature six HMSS films and their directors at this year’s GCUFF film festival!

The Greater Cleveland Urban Film Foundation was established in 2012 to celebrate, preserve, promote and advance African American arts, culture, and cinema. GCUFF’s 2022 film festival will take place from September 15-23, 2022, at Shaker Square Cinemas in Cleveland, Ohio.

This year’s GCUFF festival will include a panel discussion with the directors of the top six Heights Middle School Shorts films (chosen by the audience at the July 6 screening), where the HMSS campers will show their films and talk about their journeys from ideas to screenplays to finished films.

“To say that we are excited is an understatement,” said Jen Holland, HMSS co-founder. “The partnership with GCUFF will give our campers a fabulous new audience for their films, and provide them with the unique experience of presenting their work at an important film festival.” The July 6 screening of 2022 HMSS films will take place from 2:00-3:30 at Heights High School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. The public is welcome to attend. Registration is required for the screening.

March 22, 2021March 22, 2021

COVID-19 Safety at the 2021 Heights Middle School Shorts

Summer is coming, and we’re confident that, by May 8 when writing workshops start, Northeast Ohio will have begun to develop some herd immunity thanks to the aggressive vaccination efforts of officials in the region. That’s good news for our kids, our families, and our instructors.

But it doesn’t mean that everything will be ‘back to normal’ in Cleveland Heights and at Heights Middle School Shorts and that we no longer need to exercise caution. We’ll still require campers to wear masks in the classroom and on shooting locations (though actors and actresses will not be required to wear masks unless doing so is part of the film script). We’ll still ask participants to ‘social distance’ at all times. We’ll still insist on regular hand-washing and the frequent use of hand sanitizer. And we’ll still clean and disinfect desks and other frequently touched objects and surfaces daily.

How will we practice ‘social distancing’ at camp?

January 31, 2021March 3, 2021

Introducing the 2021 Instructors

‘It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.’
– Albert Einstein

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re pleased to present our Height Middle School Shorts instructors for the Summer 2021 camp:

Antonio Harper, Filmmaking and Film Editing Instructor

Antonio has been making films for more than ten years. From shooting a home-movie version of 007 with his sisters when he was 13 to working with Yann Demange on the set of White Boy Rick in 2017, his skills are vast and his growth is rapid. He attended Cleveland State University from 2013 to 2017 and earned a degree in Film and Television.

January 11, 2021February 9, 2021

A Camp Is Born…

The show will go on! And the middle school students of Cleveland Heights and University Heights will be right in the – no pun intended – middle of it.

Heights Middle School Shorts

After working in partnership with Ensemble Theatre for four years to introduce our students to the dramatic arts through the Heights Performing Arts Camp, we’re going all-in on film.

This summer, Building Heights is launching Heights Middle School Shorts, a three-week mixed-media film arts camp for CH-UH middle school students, where up to 30 students going into grades 6, 7, and 8, will discover their own creativity and artistic expression – the majority of whom will attend the camp at no cost.

Heights Middle School Shorts will help CHUH students tell stories through the medium of film. Working in small groups and guided by local professionals experienced in filmmaking, writing, acting, music, and facilitating youth creative expression – including in particular our principal instructors Antonio Harper and James Rankin, and Amy Rosenbluth of Lake Erie Ink – HMSS campers will write short stories that they will turn into short films containing short musical scores.