The New York Times's Hamlet in 15 seconds competition.

In the past few months, The New York Times has been tasking high school students with creating short performances of fragments of Hamlet through Instagram's video service.

Now they've posted some of the results having received over five hundred entries.

With only 15 seconds and the small field of vision offered on Instagram, capturing an elaborately staged scene from “Hamlet” is a technical challenge. But some students found ways to make the most of the format.

Emma Anderson, who plans to graduate from Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in California in 2016, used an iPhone and text messaging to help deliver Hamlet’s lines about the “special providence in the fall of a sparrow.” Lit up only by the light of her iPhone in her bedroom, she said she found making the video less challenging than adapting Shakespeare’s writing to the 15-second format of Instagram video.

“The most difficult part was picking the line,” she said. “I think finding the right line for that span of 15 seconds was a very important thing.”