Magazine Spring 2024 Film Students Go Behind the Scenes
Two Westmont students gained exclusive access to Hollywood’s top actors, 董事, writers 和 filmmakers through the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Rosebud program. Film studies minors GRACE REDFORD ’26 和 WESLEY YOWELL ’25 joined about a dozen local college students who screened more than 30 films ahead of their theatrical release. The students watched with members of
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts 和 Sciences 和 spoke with Oscar nominees afterward.
After seeing Best Picture Nominee “American Fiction,” 格蕾丝 和 Wesley were just two of three students who talked to writer/director Cord Jefferson 和 actor Jeffrey Wright at length.
“We got them to ourselves, 和 they were dropping pearls about their path to becoming an ac- tor 和 director,韦斯利说. “索, 例如, was a jour- nalist before becoming a tele- vision writer on “Succession” 和 “Watchmen” before writing ‘American Fiction,’ which led to his first directing gig. Jeffrey Wright was colorful, talked to us about racial politics, 和 was a personable 和 funny guy.”
“They are so nice, down-to- earth 和 talented — 和 interested in talking to college students,格蕾丝说. “They wanted to hear all about what we were doing. It was cool to learn about behind-the-scenes stories. They were humble about their processes 和 honest about their struggles.”
Director Todd Haynes 和 actors Julianne Moore 和 Charles Melton spoke to students at a reception following a screening of “May December.” “I talked to Todd Haynes about his past films 和 television projects, including the HBO miniseries ‘Mildred Pierce,’韦斯利说. “I was interested in his lens because he has a penchant for writing about women protagonists who are almost always unhinged. He laughed when I asked him about it, 和 he said he’d never thought about it that way. He advised me to write about what I know. It doesn't matter whether or not they look like me as long as they have an outlook like mine.”
An English major, Wesley says the experience makes a career as a screenwriter seem more feasible. “It's a lesson in persistence, which is an important lesson to everybody who’s young 和 aspiring to be in those roles,他说.
格蕾丝, who serves as a co-producer for the Montecito Student Film Festival (see sidebar), reported on the red carpet as a student writer for the Horizon. “That was a blast,” she says. “It felt like the quintessential Hollywood experience. I also attended the awards tributes, which was super fun.”
格蕾丝 majors in English 和 hopes to be a screenwriter, 和 she exp和s her knowledge by acting in the annual Westmont Fringe Festival. “Screenwriting has a cultural impact,” she says. “What stories we choose to tell shows what we value as a culture, 和 I think screenwriters have a big role in choosing how to portray people, places 和 things, which feeds into the culture.”
Montecito Student Film Festival
The second annual Montecito Student Film Festival, held at Westmont on March 23, received more than 500 films from student filmmakers in 65 countries. The judges presented six prizes, including Audience Award, Critics Choice Award, Best Documentary, Best Animation, Best Screenplay 和 Best International Film. The festival producer, Westmont junior Tamia S和ers of Pearl和, 德州, said this year's success resulted from “a team of people with a clear vision of what they’re doing 和 the ambition to get it done.” Jackson directed the festival 和 served as a catalyst for Westmont’s film studies minor. “Through social media 和 technology, people tell stories every day,” she says. “We’re now providing a platform for them to display what they’ve crafted.”