CULLMAN — UPDATE: “Joan: Maiden, Martyr, Warrior, Witch” will premiere Friday, Feb. 24 and Saturday Feb. 25 in the Cullman High School School auditorium. Cost is $5/students and $8/adults. Formal attire is encouraged but not required.

Most high school students’ experience with filmmaking begins and ends with the ‘record video’ feature on their cell phones.

For students in the theater department at Cullman High School, it’s a little bit more involved.

That’s because they’re taking their acting aspirations beyond the stage and onto the screen, producing and starring in a feature film adapted and directed by CHS theater instructor Dillon Lee.

Called Joan: Maiden, Martyr, Warrior, Witch, the 45-minute film employs the talents of Lee’s Theater I and II classes as it tells the story of Joan of Arc from four points of view — each a unique facet of the heroine’s persona.

Breaking the main character into four roles opens the way for more students to get involved in the on-screen action, but Lee said nearly every aspect of the film — even behind-the-scenes support like makeup and costuming — relies heavily on the students’ initiative, willingness to learn, and creative powers.

“They enjoy it; I mean, they bring a lot of energy and focus,” said Lee. “We’ve been all over the place in various stages of production this year, and everyone gets really involved, as you can see. [The film] investigates four aspects of Joan’s life; what I have defined as different, distinctive periods in her short life. What we’re really trying to show is to sort of give multiple perspectives of how Joan’s been viewed, and to let everyone in the audience make up their own minds.”

Lee, who has done his share of theater and screen work outside academics, has been ambitious in his plan for the film, integrating location shooting and overlapping roles into what could have become merely a filmed version of a stage play.

On a drizzly day at the scenic grounds of Sacred Heart Monastery, where a columned portico frames period-dressed soldiers, inquisitors, and Joan herself against a backdrop appropriately analogous to medieval France, one thing’s easy to see: these are kids who aren’t here simply because they were asked to be; the students exude an enthusiasm for the project that transcends a perfunctory trudge through assigned coursework just to get a good grade.

“Sometimes they have to shoot everything over because I’m laughing,” said Erica Harris, one of the four actors who portrays one facet of Joan’s persona. “There are definitely retakes. It really gets pretty involved, because the emotions and the faces we do are a big part of it, and there are a lot of tight face shots. I’m ‘witch’ Joan, so I’m the one who has to die. We haven’t shot that scene yet, but I’m really excited about it.”

The structured chaos that surrounds a movie set has an infectious quality that lures not only students, but parents and supporters as well.

“Oh, it’s great — people bleed,” said chaperone Allison Barksdale, whose son Joshua plays multiple roles in the film. “You should have been with us when we all went to the [Alabama] Shakespeare Festival to shoot the fighting — it was pretty panoramic. There was blood; there were scars. People were all across the stage in Montgomery shooting arrows, bleeding...it was just killer. But there are some really talented kids involved — some of them really will be doing this after they graduate.”

Although the film is a first for the stage-oriented theater department at CHS, Lee said the production has gotten a vote of confidence from both the school administration and latent supporters of the arts in Cullman.

“We’ve been very lucky — the high school is supportive; they let me do whatever I do, and trust that we do it responsibly and produce a good product in the end,” he said. “Our real support, financially, comes from the community. We have a patronage system that we use for every show, and our support has increased. I’ve been very lucky because all the [stage] shows I’ve done besides Annie — which is a much bigger show — have essentially been paid for by patrons.”

Mimicking the major studios’ frequent inclination toward hedging on a film’s announced release schedule, Lee said the class is still too involved in production to pin down an exact date for the release of CHS’s first in-house movie. Plans call for a release this semester, with a premiere to be held at the school’s auditorium. A DVD of the film also will be available for purchase.

* Benjamin Bullard may be contacted at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or 256-734-2131, ext. 270.