By Emily Frazier

A film capturing the life of the City of Greensburg has captivated the GS community. Repost after repost occurred the day the film was released, for people felt personally connected with the video and all it featured.

Skene-19 Films is a video production company that has been in business for over 10 years. Owned by Greater Latrobe alum, Marcus Morelli, and assisted by GS alum, Derek Hughes, Skene-19 Films creates many types of videos, ranging from promotional commercials to entertaining short films.

One of their latest films was for the City of Greensburg called This is Greensburg. This Is Greensburg featured many GS students, businesses, activities, events and more.

“The main purpose, initially, was for advertising,” Morelli said. “The city hired us to do a 2-minute promotional video and a 30-second commercial, and that’s what we set out to do, but the more we shot, the more we learned that this footage was special; we love this city.”

In January 2020, the city greenlit Morelli’s proposal, but due to Covid-19 restrictions, the project was put on the back burner to be continued later. As soon as things started to become normal again, Morelli and Hughes set out and filmed every aspect of life, collecting hours upon hours of footage.

“I would wake up early in the morning and get cool sunrises and get cool sunsets,” Morelli said. “I’d take my camera around town and get little moments in time.”

The City of Greensburg gave Morelli and Hughes ideas on what needed to be filmed, but they found themselves capturing more than that.

“We were hired by the city for this, sure, but it turned into more of a passion project,” Hughes said.

They went outside of the box and chose to shoot in locations they hadn’t planned on before taking their camera and drone with them.

“We took the initiative of shooting football games and Greensburg Salem students,” Morelli said.

Seniors Madison Krofcheck and Kayla McMichael were two of the many GS students featured in the film. Krofcheck was seen dribbling a soccer ball at her game and cheering under Friday Night Lights, enjoying her hobbies. Caught in two aspects of her daily life, McMichael was shown conducting the marching band and serving customers at Prantl’s Bakery.

Other students who were spotted in the film include freshman Izabella Caruso, senior Lillian Gatons and her brother, Quintin Gatons(a ‘20 graduate), junior Ava Hardaway, freshman Natalia Hardaway, senior Colten Houser, senior Isaiah Payne and other members of the GS football team, seniors Gabrielle Sheffler and Kaidence Thomas in the Salem Psychos student section, the GS marching band, senior Aleah Collins and members of the cheer team.

From a commercial standpoint, Morelli and Hughes also filmed snippets of life in local businesses and events, though they struggled to choose who and what to film.

“Well, if we could have, we would have featured every single business,” Hughes said. “We went to a bunch of businesses and realized we couldn’t fit everyone in, but hopefully the essence of it makes it feel like everyone was involved.”

The amount of footage they accumulated over time shocked them. They knew something more was blossoming from this project.

“To see what we had after a day of filming, to see how special it was becoming, I think that was a really cool part, to see how it evolved,” he said.

Positive feedback from the community came in waves.

“We’re very flattered and humbled that it went kind of locally viral,” Morelli said. “We hope the film can live on for a long time.”