Three seniors are turning a classroom economics project into an entrepreneurial endeavor. 

When seniors Abdurraheem Sheikh, Maggie Wang, and Lukas Blois received an assignment to make a movie trailer in AP Economics, they not only completed it but also took it as an opportunity to establish their very own production studio, BYW Productions.

“We had our first econ project which was to make a movie trailer or a movie poster over the certain econ topic we were learning in that unit,” Sheikh said. “We decided not to make a movie poster and make a movie trailer because we had free time that week. We started filming our assignment and we started working on it and the passion came out of nowhere. All of a sudden we wanted to do really well on it.”

While the project started off as a singular, well-executed short film, once the seniors realized that they would have to create a short film for every unit in economics, they decided to create a production studio.

“At first it was going to be a podcast,” Blois said. “And then we heard Mr. Li’s plans about how every couple of weeks there’s going to be a production style project. It worked out and we decided that maybe we could join together and do a podcast with short films. It kind of all came together.”

The short films are then publicized through social media so a wider audience can view the seniors’ cinematic work.

“We wanted  BYW Productions to reach more people and make it big, so we made an Instagram account, a TikTok account, and a Spotify,” Sheikh said. “We have a podcast coming up soon about how it was made and behind the scenes. We had a visual podcast for youtube and for TikTok.”

The thought and effort put into these assignments by the students amazed AP Economic teacher, Scott Li.

“How good and how much work they’ve put into this project is unbelievable,” Li said. “They’ve talked to me about how much time they took and it’s incredible. It is unbelievable how much work and time they’ve spent. They spend all their time on the weekends and they stay up until 4 or 5 AM in the morning. It is really incredible.”

With only three producers that are a part of BYW Productions, each member has a versatile role.

“Since it’s a small team of three, we have very dynamic roles,” Sheikh said. “We all cover each other’s responsibilities. Maggie, I’d say is our primary editor, I am director/filmographer. Lukas is also a director/filmographer. All three of us are actors and voice actors. And all three of us are editors. We just do everything together.”

Throughout the filming process, the seniors used inspiration from their idol, filmmaker Christopher Nolan.

“I’ve always been into filmmaking, and Abdurraheem and Lukas are both really into all types of films especially, Christopher Nolan,” Wang said. “He was the director for Creed and Oppenheimer which is what our last two films have been based off of. He was really what pushed us to do this.”

Although the process from filming to editing to finally releasing the product can be very time consuming, working with friends makes it worthwhile.

“This is going to sound very oxymoronic but I think my favorite is the exhaustion that comes with it because to be honest, as much as it gets annoying, and tedious, and stressful, it’s a lot of fun to do something for the sake of entertainment with friends, even if it means editing late into the night,” Sheikh said.

For Wang, the most exciting part of the filming process is the audience reactions when the short films are officially released.

“I think my favorite part is watching what we made back for the first time and then posting it and seeing the comments on it,” Wang said. “Mrs. Gardner commented on it which is really cutesy and I think just looking at people’s reactions to our little projects makes me want to make more.”

Even though the short films are based on economics projects at the moment, the three seniors hope to start making their own original films in the future.

“We just want to keep growing [BYW Productions],” Blois said. “Keep posting new stuff. “Trying out new mediums, such as short films and podcasts. Trying different stuff, seeing where it goes and trying to grow the social media part of it. Hopefully, we want to create an original short film eventually, since it’s been typically based off of the econ project we’re assigned.”