Many film students dream of winning an Oscar in the best director category.
This dream is one step closer to coming true for sophomore film major Lydia Kane as her final project in last semester's Film I class was recently accepted into two film festivals.
Kane's film "Reflect" was accepted into the FilmShift Festival in Somerville, Mass., near Boston, as well as the Flatland Film Festival in Lubbock, Texas. The film addresses issues concerning beauty, insecurities and vanity from the perspective of a young adult female and stars Weslie Detwiler, a sophomore majoring in English, as the female lead.
"Research was the first important step of being accepted into any film festival," Kane said. "After I found the film festivals I wanted to submit to, I sent them a DVD and paid the submission fee. Then I waited and prayed that I would be given a chance for my film to be shown in at least one festival."
Kane said she first became interested in film during her Media Communications class in high school.
"I find everything about film interesting, including the whole creative process of filmmaking and showing my thoughts and ideas through film in an entertaining way," she said.
In Film I, the semester is spent conceptualizing pre-production for a short film, working with 16 mm black and white reversal film and digitally editing. Students also learn how to work with a Bolex camera, a vintage camera fashioned for combat during World War II.
"This was my first experience working with actual film stock," Kane said. "Film I motivated me to complete a project that I could be proud of."
The final project for Film I was to create a surreal film, a style in the manner of dream-like states, to be shot on a Bolex. The project had to avoid any clichés of surrealism as well as adhere to basic principles of continuity and structure.
"Holly Hey [assistant professor of theatre and instructor of the course] motivated me by making me think in a way I have never had to think before -- in a surrealist way," Kane said.
Other requirements for the project included shooting 400 feet of film, sending it to the lab for processing and transferring the film to HD format to be edited using the Mac editing software Final Cut Pro.
Though the course was rigorous and demanding, if students followed the required standards it was nearly impossible to turn out a substandard film.
Kane submitted the film to four festivals.
"I passed the first round in all of them, but I was not shown in two," she said.
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