Students ready to take credits
SANTA MONICA COLLEGE With zero filmmaking experience and a small list of acting credits to his name, Charlie Jones isn’t quite ready to rival Steven Spielberg or Jerry Bruckheimer.
But when “Barry’s Last Chance”— a short comedy about a man’s struggle to express his feelings to the woman he loves — premieres tonight along with 10 other student-made films, other budding filmmakers might be looking to keep up with the Joneses.
A college-sized version of the Sundance Festival, the Student Filmmakers Association will host its semi-annual film show this evening, a showcase for short films produced by the aspiring Hollywood sect on campus.
The event typically held at the end of each semester features 11 films, ranging from comedy to drama, from narratives to music videos. Each has a running time between 5 and 10 minutes and were completely conceptualized, funded, directed and edited by the students.
“The quality (of the films) is very good and I think some of the films, not all of them, are made with the kind of quality I’ve seen in films coming out of actual film schools,” said Films Studies Professor Josh Kanin, one of the club’s faculty advisers.
The film show has been held biannually since Kanin became a full-time professor at Santa Monica College nine years ago. The Student Filmmakers Association dates to the 1980s, but the exact inception date of the event remains uncertain.
Following tonight’s screenings, the Student Filmmakers Association will take the top five shorts and present them during the first Community College Student Film Festival on June 14 at the Landmark Theater, near the Westside Pavilion. The event will be a collaborative effort of SMC, Los Angeles Community College and Los Angeles Valley College. Each school is expected to contribute about five films.
For many of the students, the film show provides a venue to present their work to a group of strangers who can offer the criticism that a friend or family member might be reluctant to dish out to an aspiring filmmaker.
Jones’ entertainment experience is limited to two and a half years of acting that he picked up during a stint in the Air Force.
The Wills Point, Texas, native moved to California to pursue a career in the entertainment industry, picking a community college whose transfer rate to renowned film school universities is among the highest in the state.
After hearing about the Student Filmmakers Association’s upcoming film show, Jones started brainstorming, looking over some traditional storylines when he came across “the last goodbye” theme.
He started working his way up from there, eventually ending up with “Barry’s Last Chance,” his first film.
The movie is about a man in love with a woman who is about to leave town. As the title character tries to build the courage to reveal his feelings, he is repeatedly interrupted, until he finally blows up and confesses.
Unfortunately for the protagonist, the object of his affection is a lesbian.
“I started from (the last goodbye) and worked my way up to a guy’s secret love and I had to throw in a twist,” Jones said. “What better twist than she being a lesbian?”
Lacking an actual film production class at SMC, the organization has provided the students an avenue to learn about film-making from one another, drawing from each other’s experiences as the club is filled with both the experienced and beginners.
“The films really reflect a lot of creativity and originality and are made with pretty good technical skills,” Kanin said. “I don’t know where they get these skills because they’re not being taught here.”
Current club President Kyle Mengelkamp fell in love with filmmaking in high school, when he was asked to take on several film-making projects for the Board of Education.
Since joining the Student Filmmakers Association in Fall 2004, he has submitted films in two of the shows — “Sour Grapes,” a comedy, and “Everything Takes Emit,” a film edited so the sequence of events is reversed.
His most recent film — a documentary on homeless children in Los Angeles — did not qualify for the film show because, at 22 minutes long, it exceeded the 10-minute maximum requirement. He does intend to submit the film to entertainment executives.
“It was a chance for me to really get involved with other filmmakers,” Mengelkamp said of the club. “To improve my filmmaking experience.”
The student film show is free and open to the public. It will take place at 6 p.m. in Room 214 of the SMC Art Complex, 1900 Pico Blvd. For more information, contact (310) 434- 4588.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 25, 2007. Read the original PDF.