Student posters featured at Avengers premiere

Michael Bocale doesn’t know if he’s going to walk the red carpet or meet any celebrities, but he’s excited nonetheless. 

Bocale and two of his fellow classmates from Chaminade College School will be guests at the Canadian premiere of Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame on April 24. Grade 10 student Bocale, Grade 10 student Logan Dowie and Grade 11 student Nicholas Basso were chosen to attend for their movie poster designs which will be featured at the premiere. 

“I am excited for the premiere. It’s going to be a wonderful experience,” said first-place winner Bocale, 16. “I am really proud about it (the poster) since I wasn’t in the class this semester, so I didn’t have any class time to work on it and I am proud that I came first out of all of them.”

Ninety Communications Technology students at Chaminade school in Toronto spent two weeks designing posters with the hope of earning an invitation to the Canadian premiere. Ten posters from each grade class (Grades 10-12) were peer-selected before being sent to the marketing team at Disney Canada, which provided feedback and selected the best three. 

“Just being able to be noticed by people on the marketing team on Disney, I don’t know, it’s surreal,” said Dowie, 15, who won second place. “I’ve always loved superheroes and the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) especially. I’ve always watched their movies so it felt really nice to be a part of it. It’s going to be a cool experience to see (the movie) before everyone else, to get an exclusive first peak.” 

Avengers: Endgame is released in theatres on April 26. 

Third place winner Basso, 16, has never missed an Avengers movie since the first one in 2012. 

“When I first heard about it, I thought I finally get to go to one now, I finally get to go to a movie premiere that I waited for since Infinity War (2018),” said Basso. “Right after Infinity War finished, I wanted to know what was going to happen next because I didn’t follow the comics. I just followed the movies so I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”        

The poster design challenges first began in 2015. Communications Technology teacher Anthony Perrotta challenged his Grade 9 STEM Business and Technology students to design posters for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

He wanted to show his students the impact of social media outreach and digital portfolio curating. The effort proved effective, receiving much feedback from the Twitter audience and even from a Toronto newspaper. 

The marketing team of Disney Canada caught wind of the story and offered spots to the Canadian premiere to the Star Wars movie. The poster design challenge was born.

“My hope for the students who participated in the poster challenge is that they had the sense that they were part of an experience that was provided, that was going to give them exposure outside of the classroom space,” said Perrotta. 

Avengers: Endgame may is certainly not a Catholic intentioned-movie but Perrotta said he hopes students who watch the movie can pull out the virtues and values from the characters in these cultural texts. 

“Endgame may not be a Catholic film but it is as Catholic learners and as Catholic teachers that we bring out sensibility to this film and we look at it through that lens and our faith through that artifact,” said Perotta.

(Pham, 18, is a Grade 12 student at Chaminade College School in Toronto.)