March, 2008

The REMC 3&9 Independent Student Film Festival began as an idea prior to the summer of 2006. With so much attention these days being placed on student testing and teacher evaluation, I wondered how the general public could come to understand how all the skills that students gain in today's schools might render itself visible. Additionally, as an amateur filmmaker and overall movie buff myself, I wanted to find a way to help students who had an interest in film and acting, to show their stuff. Thus, the festival was born. But we still needed some more concrete goals.

The goals of the festival were originally three-fold. First, the festival would provide a venue for students with talent that often went unrecognized. These students might be lingering in school production courses, working on the drama club teams, or might even be starring into computer screens watching YouTube videos. These students have talent and the patience to tell a compelling story and they deserve the same recognition as students who are athletically or academically gifted.

 

Second, the festival would demonstrate that students have the ability to combine many of the intangible elements of learning into a coherent work. With great attention being paid to authentic assessment and real-world experiences that show just what students know, video puts that message front and center. Students cannot hide behind other classmates. Students cannot simply throw a project together at the last minute. Making a film or video takes planning, writing, logistical skill and technical knowledge. It's not as simple as taking out the family camera at Christmas and pointing it in people's faces. No, a compelling story takes careful crafting and a deliberate sense of what is revealed to the audience, and when.

 

Third, and this is a very selfish reason, I wanted to make a movie. The REMC serves as a center where local educators can obtain media for use in their classrooms. Alas, as funding tightens and resources are allocated to other endeavors, an aging media collection has been left behind. While maintaining classic films that defined filmmakers’ careers and still stand the test of time, some other materials are rapidly outdated. Have you ever tried to get a student to watch a black-and-white film? It's hard because they are so integrated into a digital world of vibrant colors and actors they recognize. This was why I wanted to remake Edgar Allen Poe's, “The Cask of Amontillado.” It was a very popular resource, but was somewhat dated in its presentation of the macabre world of Poe's vision. Thus, a script was begun. Next actors were casted. Finally shooting begin in the summer of 2006. The final result “One Winged Bird” tells a very similar tale as “The Cask” but with a more modern feel. This resource is now available to local Saginaw educators to assist students in understanding Poe's literary methods.

The review of the submitted films is the most exciting time of the whole process. It is our first glimpse of what has taken students several months to complete. In 2007 we received, 36 films ranging from just 30 second Public Service Announcements to 30 minute mini-documentaries. Of the films that were submitted, 8 were eventually selected based on some important criteria.

The first criteria the review committee established was that the story had to be interesting and had to hold the audiences attention. This meant not just telling a good story, but weaving it in such a way as to draw the viewer along with it. Instead of revealing too many details too quickly, the better films took their time to dole out clues and important information about the plot and the characters in a timely manner. But there elements alone did not support the film in its entirety.

The second criterion was established was one of appropriate taste. Profanity, unnecessary violence, and objectionable material were immediately removed from the running. In the first year of evaluating student videos, only two came across as seemingly inappropriate for a general audience. This is a constant topic of debate for the committee because we all have very different views on appropriate material. Given that students are exposed to TV and video game violence on a daily basis, our efforts to move them beyond this material, in their own works, is a challenge. The committee will continue to examine this issue and provide guidance in future festivals.

The final criterion is the most challenging for students. This involves the technical quality of the final work. If you have every watched a home movie from a birthday or holiday, you understand how difficult it can be to watch a jarring and shaking video. This is the challenge many students face: how to shoot in such a way as to minimize camera shake. The trick to good movie making is to make the camera invisible to the audience. Instead of an audience member thinking about someone holding the camera for them, we want the audience to become the camera where every movement is purposeful and seamless. With today's hand-held camcorders this can be difficult, but some students have successfully addressed this problem. This being said, the technical elements are usually the most daunting. But for those students who have an eye for the camera and a sense of point-of-view, their works can successfully transport the audience into the film.

For the 2008 film festival, the following films were selected:

Dinner on Evergreen Street by Nicholas Marino of Nouvel Catholic Central HS

San Francisco Avenue by Nicholas Marino of Nouvel Catholic Central HS

Paranoia by Jesse Aho, Jimmie Smith and Brian Church of Bullock Creek HS

Sketch by Nathan Placer and Eric Timm of Birch Run HS

Game: The Movie by Jason Schneider, Jeff Zinz and Kyle Friedi of Saginaw Heritage HS

Deceit by Robert Smith, Miranda Ries, James Waters, Ariel Hutton and Kelsey Mehl of Hemlock HS

The Patrol by Alex Mixter and Jack Mott of Saginaw Heritage HS

Sara's Song by Haley Frontiera of Swan Valley Middle School

The awards will be given at the Film Festival in two categories: Best of Show and Honorable Mention. Sometimes Honorable Mention gets a bad rap, since Best of Show is really the pinnacle of accomplishment. The Film Festival Committee wants to make it very clear that the Best of Show videos really do stand out from the crowd based on storyline and technical merits, but we did see some very interesting techniques used by the Honorable Mention videos. Participants that receive an HM award should be look at themselves as losing out, rather the review committee felt that while some technical and qualities issues might have been lacking, there were other elements that made the film worth showing and also recognizing.

The awards are provided by Ed Taylor of Taylor Trophy in Saginaw. Ed made things very easy and gave us a lot of options to consider as we attempted to make 2008 stand apart from 2007. In addition, the film festival would not be possible without the financial resources from our two principle sponsors: The MEEMIC Foundation and The Saginaw Community Foundation. In total, these two agencies provided the REMC Film Festival with approximately $2000 for the 2008 Film Festival.

For additional information on the festival, please visit www.remc3-9.org/2008filmfestival.

 

 

 

 

REMC 3 & 9 Film Festival