The senior slump has certainly not affected Belmont motion pictures student Madison Bishop.
In March, Bishop’s senior capstone film “In God’s Image” received two awards from the Internet Movie Database — the Gold Award for Best Student Film and the Gold Award for Best Women Short.
She began writing “In God’s Image” during her junior year of high school, using her public school’s strict dress code as inspiration.
“I wish I had broken the rules to prove a point. So I decided to make my capstone about a girl who actually did something about the problem and didn’t back down when challenged by authority figures around her,” Bishop said.
The film features freshman Emily Conley as Rory, who protests her school’s dress code by tearing apart her school uniform and eventually walking into school in a “clear, plastic suit.”
Telling this story through film wasn’t easy, though.
“Many people, including myself before college, don’t seem to understand the amount of time and work that goes into filming a story, no matter how short,” Bishop said.
To tell this important story, Bishop made a point to feature women in the production.
“I had a full female cast and predominantly female crew who all felt somewhat seen through the story in different ways,” she said.
The response received after screenings confirmed the work put into this story was worth it, Bishop said.
“My goal was to say how messed up the message behind dress codes are, I didn’t realize so many other people felt the same way.”
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This article written by Isabel Lemmon. Photo courtesy of Madison Bishop.