Film festival to showcase student talent, vision, work

This is a screencap from Mount Pleasant graduate student Maverick Moore’s film “Friday, October 21.” This is one of three films Moore will showcase at the Black Glasses Film Festival on Friday. (Courtesy Photo)

Each spring semester, selected students spend countless days creating films of all types that are shown at The Black Glasses Film Festival.

While film and digital media majors primarily enter in this festival, all students are allowed to submit their own films.

This year, the event will be held at 7 p.m. Friday in the Jones Theatre of the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center.

Tickets are $3 for students, seniors and military, and are $5 for adults. They can be bought in 150 Castellaw Communications Center from Melanie Ferguson or they can be bought at the door.

Some of the films may include violence, adult themes and profanity, so parents attending the festival should expect PG-13 levels throughout the films.

Students whose films were selected for the festival are: Stilwell Kans., graduate student Phillip Heinrich, Fort Worth graduate student Aaron Youngblood, Burleson senior Mikey Newton, Siloam Springs, Ark., senior Alec Weaver, Mount Pleasant graduate student Maverick Moore, Roseville Calif., senior Nick Mater, Dallas senior Stephen Bell, New Braunfels senior Liz Kensing, Waco graduate student Ruth Sabin, Fair Oaks Ranch junior Luke Rodgers, graduate student Bob Oei and Hewitt senior Zachary Korpi.

Students submitted films of various genres, which range from one minute to 30 minutes long. There are four awards given out at the conclusion of the festival: Best Film, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, which are voted by judges, and Audience Choice, which is voted on by the audience.

There is also a separate contest called “The Best Ten Pages Screenwriting Competition” where students submit the first 10 pages of their screenplay to Dr. James Kendrick, associate professor of communication or Brian Elliott senior lecturer of communication studies.

There will be a first, second and third prize awarded for this. The competition is based on Hollywood insiders who say a script can be found successful within the first 10 pages.

This will be Moore’s first time in the Black Glasses Film Festival. Three of his films were selected: “Friday, October 21”, “Something Mental” and “Where We Started.” He said he is excited that his films were selected.

“Three of my films made it into the festival, and I consider these three my best work,” he said. “On one hand, my top three films get into a festival and on the other hand, the well has run dry. It’s time to get back to work again.”

Moore said his first film, “Friday, October 21”, was a project for his directing class and is a narrative short, a short story that presents connected events, centered on true events.

“Basically, the story is about a guy who is physically and mentally tormented by those around him,” he said. “For mysterious reasons, he is also obsessed with a self-proclaimed prophet, Harold Camping, stating that the world will end on Friday, October 21.”

For his other two films, “Something Mental” and “Where We Started”, he said one was an award winner while the other was a trailer for a film made by a Baylor professor.

“Something Mental won the Fan Favorite Award in the Transworld Skateboarding’s Cinematographer Contest,” he said. “It’s a skateboard montage with no actors, scripts or rehearsals. The other film is a trailer I made for Chris Hansen’s “Where We Started.” It’s about two strangers who have reached the age where life’s disappointments start to add up.”

Moore said he would like to work in Los Angeles or Nashville as a film director.

“That’s my dream,” he said. “Working as an editor would be fantastic as well. If I could pick any business to work for, it would be for The Criterion Collection.”

The Criterion Collection is a company that distributes important and classic films to film-lovers.

Youngblood will be at the festival for the first time as well. He will be displaying three films: “The Slide.” “Voices Wake Us,” which is a 20-minute short, and a two-minute teaser for an upcoming feature named “In Paradise.”

He said he is co-directing the two-minute teaser with fellow student Philip Heinrich.

“We will be shooting the film in August,” he said. “The film that is showing at Black Glasses is a short teaser that introduces the audience to the main character.”

Youngblood also co-directed “Voices Wake Us” with Heinrich. He said the film was a main project for his film production class that he worked on all semester.

“It is a sci-fi story that involves a single character that crashes on an alien planet and is only able to communicate with her ship’s computer, AI,” he said.

The other film Youngblood made, “The Slide,” was a class project, which was shot on a playground.

“We had to choose one location from a list of options and one plot item from a list of choices and make that plot item take place in the location we chose,” he said. “The premise I chose was getting lost in a playground.”

The winners will be announced the same night, shortly after the conclusion of the festival.