St Martin’s College fifth form students brought George Orwell and William Shakespeare together for their annual short film.

Nearly 100 students took to Fort Ricasoli, in Kalkara, for 24 hours of shooting that will be edited into a 10-minute short film entitled Ever More, based on Animal Farm and Macbeth. The idea is to learn more about the Shakespearean play and the Orwellian classic.

The creative script and screenplay were put together throughout the year within a programme themed Active Citizenship And Cultural Studies initiated by school director Bernie Mizzi.

Ms Mizzi teamed up with the English department and together with the students deconstructed and reconstructed different film productions of Macbeth and the film version of Animal Farm in the classroom. Students then contributed their own ideas after reflecting about what they had seen while remaining loyal to the original literature.

The production company, The Bigger Picture, together with Ms Mizzi’s company River Dream, made the experience of shooting as close to the real thing as possible with a crew of 20 and using a camera identical to the one employed in Hollywood blockbusters Spiderman 4 and the Pirates of the Caribbean, director David Serge said.

Every aspect of a low-budget film was incorporated from the technical side and a catering bus was even at hand throughout breaks during filming.