John Brown University's Cinema Department is preparing for a round of student film screenings at the end of this week.
The screening, scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 13, at JBU's Berry Performing Arts Center, will feature films from Connor Wilkinson and Alec Soard. The free screening is open to the public.
Steve Snediker, assistant professor of visual arts and the professor responsible for the cinema major, said that because there are two films being screened, the event should last about an hour. Audience members may have a chance to hear from the directors and crew before or after their movies are shown.
Snediker said that the films are PG 13, so the films may not be appropriate for everyone.
Soard's film is a documentary titled "The Great Adventure." It concerns a church program in Texas. Snediker said it was very well done.
"Alec has a gift for this documentary style," he said.
Wilkinson has made a dark comedy about a fan fiction writer called "Save the Phoenix." Wilkinson said his film was shot almost entirely in Siloam Springs and features several residents, including Wilkinson and his co-writer, John Lauderdale, both of whom grew up here.
"We wanted to film here, not just because it fit in the movie, but because this is our home," he said.
Wilkinson said that his film was aimed at small-town residents and that he wanted to convey a message that he didn't see a lot in JBU.
"We think it might be time for us to say some messages that JBU people might be uncomfortable with, but they're good messages," Wilkinson said. "We want to do more than tell a story; we want to impact people."
He didn't want to reveal the messages because he felt it would spoil it for those who were seeing the movie.
Both projects are the culmination of the cinema majors' senior capstone class. The capstone project was originally a one-semester class, but Snediker said 16 weeks was just not enough to complete such a major project.
Now, the class is split into two halves. The first half is a semester of pre-production where the students write and develop the script, choose a color palette, do design work and choose the crew they will work with.
The films typically end up near the 15-minute mark, Snediker said. That length is partly because of the limited time for developing the movies, but also because it makes the films more marketable to film festivals.
While the films are not explicitly required to be Christian movies, themes of redemption are a focus of the cinema program, Snediker said.
"I have the heart to properly equip students so they can go out and compete in the real world and be lights in the real world," Snediker said.
Snediker has been a part of the cinema major for the last eight years. During that time, he said he has changed the program focus.
"It used to be a studies program with production; now it is a production program with some studies," he said.
The program focuses on real experience and showing students what it is like working on real film sets. Snediker said that he takes a hands-on approach and students can start using equipment right away, unlike in bigger universities where they may need to wait years before gear becomes available.
And thanks to support from a foundation and the University, JBU's Cinema Department is able to teach students on gear that they may see out in the field after graduation.
"We get good gear, sometimes the best gear that is available," he said.
Snediker said an advantage of his smaller class size is that every student gets an opportunity to do what they are interested in. If a student does not want to produce their own film, they are allowed to join another project as a specialist.
The major has stayed consistently around 45 members, said Snediker. Some notable graduates include Lucas and Jacob Roebuck, who just completed Jacob's third feature film, and a 2003 graduate who won an Emmy for his visual effects work on "CSI: Las Vegas." Numerous recent graduates are working on independent films, advertising agencies or TV stations.
Four students are lined up to produce films in for next semester. Those films are currently in pre-production and will be screened toward the end of the spring semester.
General News on 12/09/2015