In response to the rising number of mass shootings in America, three Point Park graduates teamed up in correlation with the ALICE Training Institute to create a film informing students and faculty how to react in the event of an active shooter on campus. 

Garrett Kennell, Kevin Stiller and Timm Romine, all graduates of Point Park’s cinema program, worked alongside Point Park campus police to create a training video set to be shown to students and faculty later this semester. 

ALICE is an acronym for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. According to the ALICE Training Institute’s website, the organization “teaches individuals to participate in their own survival, while leading others to safety.” Once learned, each of these five skill sets can help increase the odds of survival in an active shooter situation. 

“Jeffrey Besong asked Jeremy Braverman, chair of the cinema department, if he knew any students or recent alumni capable of producing a training video for the school,” Kennell said in a phone interview Sunday. “Jeff had seen another school do a similar video that he really enjoyed, but he thought the production quality could be better.” 

Previously, Kennell, Stiller and Romine worked together on their senior thesis film titled “Milkman,” a ten-minute narrative short film that has been circulating through film festivals around the country. “Milkman” has won multiple awards and is still being featured in online film competitions. 

Kennell was the director of the training video, which he said was very different from past narrative pieces that he has worked on. Because it is an informational piece, the director does not have the same artistic liberties that one might have for narrative films. 

“We had a full crew for this who we actually paid to work on this film, so it was really cool to actually get some work for some recent graduates,” Kennell said. 

The film was shot over the course of several days in May but was in post-production until this past week. 

According to Kennell, while the video was originally created for Public Safety to show to students and faculty, the department has high hopes that the video will gain popularity and be shown not only by the ALICE Training Institute, but also on other urban campuses. 

“Besong plans to send this video directly to the ALICE Training Institute so that they may feature it on their website,” Kennell said. “Recently, armed aggressors have been on the forefront of the media, so it was a great experience to tackle something that could possibly help someone if the situation arises.”