The heat from the lights surrounds the set as the actors step into place. Assistants scurry about, setting up props, focusing cameras and making last minute revisions to the scene. The music and lights create an ambiance only an author can envision.
As silence falls over the studio, everyone is ready-ready to create a world full of passion and romance, betrayal and crime or sadness and tragedy. He looks up and smiles. It is just as he imagined.
Karl Stromberg, a senior in communication media, has been producing films since his freshman year of college. He said he wanted to go into the film industry as a producer since he started learning the technical side of film. “It’s the one thing I’ve found in my communication major that I’m actually passionate about,” Stromberg said. “Editing film would be awesome. I like any aspect of the process.”
Stromberg has taken digital video production, film production and a screenwriting class at N.C. State. He has produced two one-minute films, or “shorts”, called “The Hit and The Fall of Cranston” which depict four gangster-like characters on a mission, each equipped with a different weapon. “I’ve always liked the action, gangster or violent films,” he said. “In a lot of the classes I’ve been in, people tend to do stuff that’s more artsy or funny, and I want to do something different.”
Elizabeth Bridenstine, a senior in communication media, has worked on films in and out of class. In her digital video production class, she helped produce a short film called “You Booze, You Lose” which she said poked fun at overly dramatic 1980s public service announcements.
When it comes to choosing actors for films, both Stromberg and Bridenstine said they have entrusted friends and roommates to pull through and portray characters in their productions. “I choose my friends because it’s convenient,” Bridenstine said. “I’ll choose people if I know how they act in everyday life. It’s easy when you have people you know and trust.”
Rain Bennett, a 2005 graduate in communication media, emphasizes the use of the right music to accompany a scene. He said music is as equally important as the actors’ words when setting the mood for a story. “Right now I’m cutting a TV show pilot that I shot out in San Francisco, and I just can’t wait to get the music to it,” Bennett said. “If I went off and had a really good film career, I would never have anyone else in charge of my soundtrack. I am a strong believer in the rhythm in film.” Bennett, who runs his own production company based out of Chapel Hill called Flying Flounder Productions, said he has performed a multitude of roles in the making of commercials, music videos and short films.
He is currently working on a documentary that depicts eastern North Carolina and its growth in business and industry. “I’ve been in the industry for three years, but the first year was just dedicated to acting roles, holding a boom, bottom-of-the-line stuff,” Bennett said. “I’ve done everything from executive producer to director of photography and everything else in between. Because I’m doing a one-man thing here, I’ve got to be technically savvy as well, even though I’m more of a writer or director.”
While Bennett invests in his own equipment for his production company by buying used and new cameras, tripods and lights, Stromberg said the equipment he uses is usually from his film and production classes. “We have 16-mm cameras, light kits, sound kits and editing software on the computer,” Stromberg said. “But since it is film, the film has to be sent away to a lab to get developed, and that takes more time and money.”
Stromberg said he prefers using film to digital technology because the pictures from digital technology seem too tailored and clear, and that is not what the human eye is used to. “Shooting on film, opposed to shooting digitally, seems like a much more pure and crisp image,” Stromberg said. “Something about the quality seems more traditional.”
Bridenstine and Bennett have both entered short films in NCSU’s annual Pinwheel Film Festival in previous years, held at Witherspoon Student Center. Bridenstine said last year’s films included “experimental films, long epics and sci-fi films.” “You have to have your film done in a DVD or mini DV format, and you submit it with a tag line,” Bridenstine said. “It is a good thing for students and people who are afraid to take the next step in filmmaking.”
The festival, hosted by Union Activities Board, began in the spring of 2004 and provides an outlet for student filmmakers to display their work to the campus community. Bridenstine said she plans on submitting a film in this year’s festival. The deadline for submission is March 30.