Student Celluloid "STORMING THE MEDIA" LOWERS THE BOOM ON ASPIRING FILMMAKERS by Neil Tennant photo by Bitsy Franantoni and Jill Nussbaum The good news? For the first time in our history, U.Va. students have a voice in the Virginia Film Festival. A group of students is running a weekend of workshops, panels, and films in conjunction with the Festival, now in its tenth year. The better news? The whole thing is free. The forum, called "Storming the Media," will run from October 31 to November 2 and includes a showcase of new student films from Virginia. All the events will be held in Newcomb Hall Theater and are co-sponsored by the Film & Media Society at U.Va. A highlight of "Storming the Media" will be an October 31 workshop on the creative use of confined locations, an event specially planned to build on the Virginia Film Festival's theme, Caged! Artist/filmmaker Beth B will be joined by filmmakers Susan Winter and Joe Brewster, all of whom have new films in the Festival program. The artists will discuss how an independent filmmaker can turn a budget limitation -- the need to reduce location costs -- into a creative cinematic opportunity. The moderator will be Jane Gaines, director of the film program at Duke University. "Storming the Media" also includes a high-powered producers' panel on November 1 including Mark Johnson (producer of Speed and Donnie Brasco), Lewis Allen (Swimming to Cambodia, Never Cry Wolf), and Marshall Persinger (U.Va. '81), whose latest film, Still Breathing, an acclaimed offbeat romance starring Brendan Fraser, is premiering at the Festival. Students will be able to ask questions about how these producers achieved their great successes -- and how to avoid their mistakes. Also November 1, veteran screenwriters Frank Pierson and Richard Tuggle will appear on a screenwriters' panel. Pierson is best known for connoisseur favorites Dog Day Afternoon and Cool Hand Luke, while Tuggle's credits include Escape from Alcatraz and Tightrope. The panel will include a screening of the short film Chekhov's Gun, which hilariously exposes some of screenwriting's most honored clichés. Students will not want to miss November 2nd's presentation on the making of local filmmaker Paul Wagner's new Windhorse, the controversial story of the political awakening of an American tourist and a young Tibetan pop singer, played by Charlottesville-based actress Taije Silverman. Wagner, an Academy Award-winning documentarian, will talk about his transition from documentary to narrative filmmaking before screening Ellen Bruno's Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy, a documentary that inspired his new film. "Storming the Media," which is expected to become an annual feature of the Festival, was sparked by the interest of students and Charlottesville filmmakers. Third-year student Sam Eder developed "Storming the Media" with the permission and assistance of Virginia Film Festival director Richard Herskowitz. They recruited the help of a relatively new organization at the university, the Film & Media Society at U.Va. (FMS), headed by third-year student Matt Chayt. Chayt transformed the defunct Audio Visuals Unlimited into the FMS in January 1997. Though AVU had been a successful organization for ten years, covering events at U.Va. and producing the notorious "On My Honor" video, Chayt says, "AVU was aimed more at teaching students how to run a business. FMS is about producing, appreciating, and exhibiting U.Va. student films." The FMS first moved into high gear last April by co-sponsoring the Salmagundi Film & Video Festival, the first event of its kind in years. Now, its email list reaches hundreds of U.Va. students. FMS members will have a lot more to look forward to in the near future: a media studies major in the College of Arts and Sciences is scheduled to become available next year, and new film and television classes are already being added to the curricula of several departments. The inception of "Storming the Media" as a feature of the Virginia Film Festival is a huge boon to U.Va. students, who will have the chance to screen their work alongside undisputed film classics and meet established Hollywood filmmakers, as well as low-budget specialists. "Sometimes 'storming the media' means schmoozing your way into the business," Eder explains. "A lot of U.Va. students who want to get to Hollywood or to New York make their career connections at festival programs like these. But this is also going to be fun for students who are curious about how their favorite movies got made." "Storming the Media" will culminate with a student film showcase on November 2. Short films from Regent University, American University, and the University of Virginia (among others) will be shown. "It's an unprecedented and wonderful opportunity. We've never had a festival of this magnitude," says U.Va. fourth-year student Chris Vander Mey, whose video short White Noise is being screened at the showcase. Vander Mey, who is an aerospace engineering major, assembled a nonlinear video editing system in his own apartment and constructed his own crane for the many complicated shots involved in White Noise. Most of his crew was composed of volunteers from the FMS. "The only help I actually got from the university was from the Engineering Department, who let me borrow a tripod," Vander Mey says. Vander Mey shot White Noise in digital video, a medium whose affordability is rapidly increasing the production values of student videos around the United States. Also at that showcase, Florida-based filmmaker Todd Norwood will present clips from his 35 mm feature Fallen Angels, discussing his project and the sacrifices he made to complete it. "I'm really excited about the [Norwood] panel," Eder says. "People are going to be amazed at how professional his film looks." The film includes plenty of special effects, including a spectacular train crash. For a complete schedule of the "Storming the Media" program or more information on the Film & Media Society, consult a Virginia Film Festival guide, the FMS homepage, or call Matt Chayt at 243-2516.

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