Staff Writer Paula Carrión attended Ferris Reel’s last zine workshop, collaged the night away, and remembered why watching movies is great.

This Thursday evening, Columbia’s Ferris Reel Film Society held its last zine workshop of the year, during which attendants had the chance to create a page of anything film-related to be featured in Ferris Reel’s film zine, The Filmingo. I arrived at Lerner with my scissors, ready to cut out images at leisure and create my first-ever page for a zine.

We were in a small and cozy room with soft background music. Ferris Reel provided magazines, glue, pens, markers, crayons, glitter, and washi tape, or in other words, anything you could ever need to create a masterpiece. And of course, snacks.

Both members of Ferris Reel and workshop participants quickly fell into conversation—about all things film and all things not film—as they worked on their zine pages. Because I apparently cannot use my scissors and talk at the same time, I dedicated myself to collaging in silence.

I love watching movies, but I really would not call myself a connoisseur, so I was kind of lost as to what I wanted my zine page to be. My approach was to peruse all the magazines available and cut out whatever image looked nice and whichever word caught my eye. (It was kind of like making poetry out of those word magnets that people love.) And so I ended up with a little pile of random images:

Then I realized that I mostly only cut out images of actresses—I do love women! So I decided to make some sort of allusion to the way actresses are scrutinized by, well, pretty much everyone.

After two hours of hard work and getting glitter all over my hands, I ended up with this:

After I finished my zine page, I talked a little bit with a couple of Ferris Reel members about their experience in the club. Cleo Helscher (BC ’25) said of this event that “we had so much fun” and emphasized that Ferris Reel tries to foster a creative community with these kinds of workshops. Sabrina Bohn (BC ’24), president of Ferris Reel, said that this film club is a great space for building community, and she also reminisced about her time in the club: “We started this [zine workshop] when I was a sophomore and now I’m a senior and it’s so nice to see how people come together to relax and listen to music, and I feel like this is a unique space on campus.”

Ferris Reel members kindly let me take pictures of the zine pages they created as well:

I had a great time at this workshop because I now feel like there is no need for you to be an expert in film (or zines) to make something worth looking at and spark conversation with. I highly recommend attending any future events organized by Ferris Reel and checking out the next edition of The Filmingo when it comes out later this spring!

All images via Author