By Eduardo Galindo, Copy Editor
Showcasing a total of 35 films, Mills’ first Fall Film Festival brought together a collection of incredible student films from beginning Media Arts students as well as advanced students. Ranging from animation to live-action thrillers, this cinematic showcase amazed the audience, and with the introduction of a new live voting system, audiences were able to help give awards to their favorite films.
In previous years, the Spring Film Festival had entries that were primarily limited to the work of advanced Media Arts students, leaving little opportunity to showcase the talents of beginning videographers. To address this, the Fall Film Festival debuted this year to provide a forum for new creators. Media Arts teacher Serena Arge commented on this change, saying, “I really appreciate that in the fall, way more of my students are able to be represented.”
In addition to the films being made by beginning media arts students, a new voting system was added to the mix. In the Spring Film Festival, guest judges had chosen certain films to receive awards; for the Fall Film Festival, audiences had the option to vote instead. After the viewing was over, the attendees were able to fill out an online form to vote for their favorite films of each genre presented. Genres included horror, comedy, action, and more.
One film that received the “Best Horror Award” was “Murder” by Teddy Lerner (11), Kingsley Chow (11), and Jacob Ramos (11). When speaking about winning the award, Lerner noted, “[I was a] little nervous because I had to go up and speak, but yeah, overall, pretty happy that our movie won…because I was proud of it.”
The Film “Murder” was about a murderer on the loose, and the main character played by Lerner was the subject of that murder. With its suspenseful thriller and jump scares, the audience was entertained the whole way through.
A select group of advanced Media Arts students were also tasked with awarding “The Upcoming Filmmakers Award”, which is for students “that show a lot of growth and potential in being stellar filmmakers,” explained Arge. “Murder” was also given “The Upcoming Filmmakers Award.”
The advanced students also had a hand in deciding the other awards for the festival. “Best overall”, “Best Animation”, the “E.P.I.C. Award”, and “Best Music Video” were among the titles deliberated and distributed by them.
Another notable submission, the award for Best Animation was given to “Day in the Life,” which impressed the audience with its intricate stop motion animation of the character Frieren from the anime with the same name. Ziao Liang (11), who attended the event, said, “I have to give all the props to the guy who did the stop motion, whoever the anonymous person was, it was incredibly fluid, incredibly good. I loved it.”
Another animation that amazed the audience was “A Caw by the Coast” by Justin Shih, which was awarded the E.P.I.C. award and best overall.
The seven minute animation was about a girl and a crow becoming friends and cleaning a beach together. According to Shih, the animation was a long and laborious process, starting last year and extending into the summer. During the production, there was a lot of brainstorming, storyboarding, and writing up dialogue, “One of my favorite things about making it was the voice acting part because I was able to get two of my voice actors the voice skit while I was trying to give them feedback live,” said Shih.
Continuing with the last steps of production Shih continued, “I had to rewatch a lot and a lot of times just to make sure there wasn’t anything…that needed fixing.” True enough, a few days before the film festival there was a mistake with the audio, “Luckily I caught it though and I was able to fix it like two days before the film festival,” Shih said.
Winning the awards for the animation’s incredible storytelling and positive environmental themes, Shih said, “I’m really honored to have received these…and I feel like I’m pretty proud of getting them for, like, how much time I spent on it.”
To make the whole event possible, Media Arts teacher Serena Arge and a team of students from her Advanced Media Arts and Video Production class worked together to present the films. Working on audio Nicholas Chang (12) commented, “Before the festival, I was in charge of putting all the films into one giant project. And I was also responsible for balancing the audio so that was converting stereo audio into mono, meaning that both the left and right speakers put out the same output.”
Chang was also part of the advanced students who looked over and judged video submissions. Chang commented that this part of the process was a joyful experience, “I like to see newcomers into the entertainment industry, and see them make films that correlate with them, how they thought about it, especially the behind the scenes section. Those were great. It showed a lot of teamwork, a lot of relationships. And overall, the films were just my favorite part.”
In the second semester, audiences can look forward to the Spring Film Festival, in which advanced Media Arts students like Chang will have a space to showcase their work. The Media Arts class hopes to make the two seasonal Film Festivals a Mills tradition going forward, and looks forward to even more of the Mills student body becoming engaged with the Media Arts program and experiencing the magic of films.
