By Staff Reporter, Lindsi Hebert.
On Sept. 27 students and film enthusiasts gathered in the Delta College Planetarium theater room to view the local shorts program. The shorts were hosted by the ninth annual Hell’s Half Mile film and music festival. This program showcased seven short films, including four local shorts that were created by Delta College students. The four films this year are “Ghoul Getters”, “Bad Dog”, “Bound” and “Dark Night”. These shorts were the final results of the 2014 Film Capstone class which is required for the Digital Film Certificate. These students are assigned to a small groups and then given a script from the Advanced Screenwriting class to make into a movie.
“I couldn’t wait to get the script into my hands and start reading what would become a short film,” said Shaun Apel, a student who worked on “Ghoul Getters”.
Understandably, these students faced many struggles in their journeys from the pre-production stages to the final cut.
“Everything went super smooth up until about two weeks before the deadline,” said Cameron Swick, a student who worked on “Bound”.
“We had scheduling conflicts with cast and crew. It really put us in a jam and we didn’t get to do the ending that we had intended on shooting, but in the end I think the final product turned out great,” said Swick.
Jeremy Little, a student who worked on “Bad Dog”, said “We shot on location at Carroll Park in Bay City and we were blessed with a warm day and no rain, but the sun kept coming and going, so some scenes were bright, while others were dull and cloudy.”
The “Bad Dog” team also had to deal with working with a live animal. Another situation occurred where they had almost no audio, but with the help of one of their professors they were able to fix the problem. “That was an issue we did not want to deal with,” Little said.
Another obstacle that comes with the class is that there’s no money for any of the films. Even with no budget, the students have been able to get creative about what they need to make their movies work. That sometimes means begging friends to play a part and promising them free food.
“It’s amazing what students could get for free,” said Jeff Vande Zande. Vande Zande is an English Professor who teaches the capstone class along Jim Gleason, Assistant Professor of the Electronic Media Broadcasting (EMB) program.
The “Bad Dog” team managed to get permission from copyright holders to play the song “Hound Dog” by Willie Mae Thornton for their ending credits. Films from previous years have managed to obtain a coffin, rent a church, and even get permission to film in a working grocery store.
These student films automatically get played at Hell’s Half Mile. Gleason and Vande Zande encourage the filmmakers to look for other festivals to submit their films as well.
“We plan on [submitting to] the Made In Michigan Film Festival and other festivals in Michigan and even out of state as well,” said Apel.
Right now Delta only offers a Digital Film certificate, but there is hope for a 2 year Digital Film degree. The certificate already combines several English and EMB classes which gives students a good mix of creative writing and film theory, according to Vande Zande
“I think our program is really unique,” Vande Zande said.