In a forest miles from home, senior Izzy Schafer and her team at Teen Made Media Productions built a dystopian world filled with fight scenes, political messages, and mosquitoes, all based on the young adult series, “The Hunger Games.” After months of filming, writing, and editing, Izzy and her team of 24 actors released “The 51st Hunger Games” on Jan. 18 on YouTube. The film features 10 Latin students and alumni.

Teen Made Media Productions, or Teen Made for short, was created in 2023 by a group of friends who shared a passion for the performing arts. Izzy met her partner-in-crime, Lauren Rainey, who is now a sophomore at Amherst College, at a youth theater program at Looking Glass Theater in downtown Chicago. Together, they wrote the script for their first film—“The 37th Hunger Games,” another spin-off of the “Hunger Games” series—which Teen Made released in June of 2024.

While the collaborators of Teen Made initially thought the movie would be a one-time project, they craved the energy and excitement of bringing their stories to life. They continued to make more short films until ultimately deciding to create a sequel to their first movie. As their storytelling evolved, they took on more complex themes through a response to LGBTQ+ discrimination, a shift that became evident in their sequel.

After Lauren proposed the sequel, the idea gained momentum as the group looked for ways to build on what they already created. Izzy recalled the fun she had with their first movie. “We basically just got to go out into nature, run around, hang out with our friends, do fight scenes, do SFX makeup, and that was just a really fun way to spend a weekend of the summer,” she said.

While “The 37th Hunger Games” clocked in at just over 20 minutes long, “The 51st Hunger Games” proved to be their most ambitious project yet with a nearly hour-long runtime. “I’ve directed all of our movies since the start, but this one was the craziest one,” Izzy said.

In comparison to the team of just six on their first film, the 26-person cast and crew, according to Izzy, “was craziness.”

The jam-packed to-do list for “The 51st Hunger Games” began when Lauren wrote the script in October of 2024. Then, she brought Izzy along to scout locations for the set from December to July.

Lauren and Izzy ultimately chose Starved Rock State Park—almost two hours away from Chicago in LaSalle County, Illinois. The distance initially dissuaded them, but after visiting one summer afternoon, the two were sold. “We were both immediately like, ‘Oh yeah, this is where we need to film,’” Izzy said. “It was just so beautiful, all the rocks and the landscape.”

In addition to choosing the set, pre-production also consisted of costume design. As teenagers on a budget, Izzy and Lauren looked no further than Amazon. “We basically found the cheapest T-shirts we could find, got them in different colors for all the different characters, and duct taped the district numbers on. It was all very DIY,” Izzy said.

Once Lauren and Izzy had finalized the costumes and location, they recruited their actor friends, including Latin junior Stella Tate Ricciardi-Fitzpatrick, to bring the script to life. “I played Brooke, she was the quote-unquote ‘runt’ of the group,” Stella Tate said.

Prior to filming, each actor was assigned a bio stating their character’s name and district number, along with other information. The bios were posted to Teen Made’s Instagram page as a teaser to the release of the movie.

Stella Tate, an accomplished stage actor who most recently starred in Latin’s winter production of “Anything Goes,” found that film acting required a new skill set. “It’s very different to actually be in the environment you’re acting in and not having to imagine you’re in a bar or imagine you’re in a house, because we were actually in the woods,” they said.

The real-life set transformed the experience, but the shift between film and stage acting required adjustments. “In a [live] show, you have one chance to make it right, but on film you have 20 chances to make it right,” Stella Tate said. “In live theater, you can do things differently, but when you’re on camera, you have to do it the same each time, especially with how your body is, because when they’re getting different angles, you have to be in the same position or it looks weird.”

The perfectionist nature of filming proved tedious, but the actors, including Latin alum Mel Butler ‘25, also gained new acting experience. “The filming process was so insanely cool,” Mel said. “The set being outside and interactive was a wonderful experience.”

“A lot of it is starting and stopping, but it’s all so worth it because the final product is really cool,” Mel said.

Stella Tate echoed Mel’s enthusiasm for the process. “It was probably one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had,” they said.

Stella Tate also offered a testament to the director’s dedication. “There were so many mosquitoes there. Izzy got bitten, I think, 52 times. She got eaten alive.”

With hours of footage and quite a few new blemishes, Izzy returned home and edited all the clips together. “We had so much footage, it was ridiculous,” she said.

With around 700 takes in the opening scene alone, Izzy edited 30 minutes of footage down to less than two minutes.

While the scale of production itself was ambitious, for Izzy and her team the film was about more than just the technical process. “The 51st Hunger Games” tackled themes of real-world discrimination through film, like the homophobia that one of the characters endured during his time in the competition. Sponsors, or wealthy Capitol members who donate money and supplies to Hunger Games participants, refused to donate to two of the characters because of their gay relationship.

Izzy and Lauren’s thoughtful script and the expert portrayals reflected the widespread impact of social issues in the real world.

“Queer rights are something that are very dear to my heart as somebody who is queer. I think homophobia is something that’s becoming more prevalent now, obviously it’s always been here, but I feel like it’s becoming more [so] in the media recently,” Izzy said. “With the ‘Hunger Games,’ it is a story that was created as political messaging. That’s what dystopia is—it’s meant to send a political message, and so it was important when making this film.”

The portrayal of the homophobia that exists within “The 51st Hunger Games” universe mirrors that of the homophobia that plagues LGBTQ+ identifying people across the world. The acknowledgement of these issues throughout the film demonstrates a teenager’s power in bringing awareness to issues close to them.

“Teens today are adults tomorrow,” Mel said. “We have to create the world that we want to live in and there are so many issues, like racism, homophobia, xenophobia, et cetera, that are affecting children and teens at the same, if not higher rates than adults at this point in time.”

Bringing together teens from different high schools all across Chicago—some of whom met for the first time on set—Teen Made and its members came to fight for meaningful issues while remaining true to the series.

By the end of the film, Izzy hopes the audience resonates with the nuance in the story and how it manifests in the real world. “Choosing to lead with kindness and choosing to not lead with the same cruelty that the world gives to you has an impact,” she said. “The main message of it is that there can be love and compassion even in the worst of times.”

This story was originally published on The Forum on April 13, 2026.