Ladue’s Film Festival took place Friday, April 18, featuring student-made, fifteen-minute films resulting from hours of student work.

One of the films featured at the festival was made by senior Antonio Zapiain Luna. Zapiain Luna said that the process begins with a script.

“I had an idea to try and make a horror movie this year for the film fest because I had never seen that done before,” Zapiain Luna said.

After searching for a script, he decided to adapt the short story, ‘The Monkey’s Paw.’ It came to his mind after he thought about scary stories that impacted him, Zapiain Luna said. Then, he chose actors for each role in his film.

“I began shooting, and it was a long process of scheduling shoots, setting up lights, and going through scenes,” Zapiain Luna said. “It’s almost always a race against time when it comes to filmmaking, but it’s always a rush.”

Once Zapiain Luna had shot the film, he started editing, a process taking four months. He scored some of the movie himself and used royalty-free music for the rest.

“When it was all done I gave it to Mr. Goble and he approved it to be shown at the film fest,” Zapiain Luna said.

The film ended out differently than what he had thought originally, but he said it became more interesting and unique.

“I like every part, but [my favorite is] probably going to go to see it all finished at the end,” Zapiain Luna said. “It just feels so awesome to see something you created come to life and affect people in a certain way.”