With five weeks left until the end of term and Grade 5 students spread out across the city, Duncan Frater had to get creative with this year's Junior School musical.
Every year, our Grade 5 students mount an impressive production. Months of effort, work and practice all help to create an unforgettable experience for students, who would normally perform for a crowd at the McPherson Playhouse. While work was underway this year to stage a musical in June, the COVID-19 pandemic quashed those plans in March.
As director of the musical, Duncan still wanted still wanted the students to have the experience of coming together (not literally) for a large performance project. In May, he started working on a movie that students and their parents could film from home.
Week 1 entailed gathering information on settings and costumes that students already had at their disposal. From there, Duncan had one week to write the movie, Robot vs. Jeremy, followed by a week of digital rehearsals with students. Students then had one week to film their scenes, giving Duncan just one final week to edit the movie before it debuted at the Legacy Drive-In theatre at the University of Victoria on June 16.
We offer our sincere thank you to our Grade 5 students and their parents, writer/director Duncan Frater, and our Junior School faculty and staff for all of their work to help Robot vs. Jeremy come to fruition. We hope you enjoy the show, which you can watch in full above!
