Peer Pride

Last class period was spent developing ideas and concepts pertaining to the production of our short film projects. As a catalyst in the idea generating process for our film production we watched a short film called “The Last Summer.” The film was scripted, produced, and edited as a senior thesis by UCA’s very own Corey Womack. “The Last Summer” is a biographical short film, approximately 15 minutes long, that tells the story of a high school graduate who is fixing to leave his small town for the pursuit of a college education. Despite his ambitions for a life greater than his hometown can offer, his friends and more importantly girlfriend are having trouble letting go of their dear friend. The plot leads the audience through his mental tribulations and external conflicts that dictate his ultimate decision.

As purely a UCA student film production, its presentation served as an excellent building tool. Through examination of its evident faults the class discovered a few of the concerns of low budget productions. Lighting is certainly now a major fear. The movie relied strongly on artificial light which forced many of the scenes to be dark and void of detail. Much of the audience had trouble with character identification because many faces were indistinguishable in the lighting circumstances. Although I’m sure their low budget limited the availability of lighting equipment, a more natural lighting appearance, which is cheap, could alleviate some of the gloom in the film. Beyond lighting indifferences, the film’s ambiguous ending was just simply too indefinite. The audience wants to assume that the main character followed his ambitions of education but has little confidence in doing so. Womack, the student producer previously mentioned, said that he was aiming for a certain cinematic effect through the vague ending of his film. He seemed to be implying that if the film portrayed the plot as he intended then the audience should be able to carry out the story line. Although such logic could rightly apply to longer and more detailed films, I feel similar gambles should be left to the professionals. Needless to say, the class now certainly realizes the importance of a solid ending.

Despite “The Last Summer” having its share of amateur production traits, Womack’s pride in the film brought the production experience to full circle. His contagious enthusiasm even made me proud of his satisfaction in his final product.

Filming starts this week- wish us luck!