High school Film Festival: About 630 students from 28 schools vie for first-place honors
Festival attendance has grown by almost 200 students since last year and the entries are increasing in professional quality — making for intense competition, said Jared Wright, who teaches film studies at West High School in Salt Lake City.
"Short film, music video and documentary categories are just cutthroat," said Wright, who is one of four teachers statewide who organized the festival.
This year's fest, in its 18th year, included 28 Utah schools from as far north as Cache County and as far south as southern Utah's Enterprise High School in Washington School District. East Hollywood High School, a charter school in Salt Lake City, joined the mix for the first time. Last year there were 24 schools participating statewide.
There were about 300 entries for the fest this year, up from last year's 230 entries. Approximately 630 students attended Wednesday, an increase from the previous year's count of 450.
The top three winning productions in each of the 11 categories will be available to view for free via Comcast's On Demand, starting Friday. The opportunity will last six weeks, according to Ray Child, public relations director for Comcast, a sponsor of the event, along with the Utah Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The teens at the festival were an eclectic group. Some had donned dramatic garb for the occasion, including a group of students from Highland High School in Salt Lake City who wore pin-striped suits. One boy even carried a cane. Students from other schools wore an array of funky hats and other artsy clothing.
The students said they learned a lot from doing their productions: mainly how much work goes into filmmaking.
"People think you just snap and it's done. It's a lot harder than you think," said Morgan Slusser, 16, a junior from Murray High School. She helped do a clay animation music video.
There are 11 categories including the newly added 48-Hour Shootout. This entailed the students filming Monday and Tuesday to produce a five-minute short. The genre was romantic comedy, with the theme of first date.
The students pay $2 to enter their productions and $12 to attend the festival.
Students on Wednesday gathered in UVSC's student center to hear guest speakers Bob Evans, a FOX 13 anchor, and two representatives from the Sundance Film Festival. The teens then got to view sneak peeks of some of the entries.
Sundance's Virginia Pearce told the teens not to give up if they didn't win in this year's high school competition.
Recent comments
Why did you not list the winners of each category? This is a positive...
Grandma Viv | May 1, 2008 at 8:39 a.m.
