A still image from Michael McKenna’s film “The Final Overture”. Credit: Courtesy of Kyoung Swearingen
As the year comes to a close, the first annual Ohio State moving image production showcase will be making its debut.
“The Very First Ever MIP Film Showcase” presents a lineup of 12 films produced by students of the first graduating class of the moving image production program. The showcase will stream online through the Wexner Center for the Arts website Friday through May 6.
“I can’t wait for everybody to watch it,” Kyoung Swearingen, associate professor of design and moving image production, said. “You can see the passion, you can really see every individual voice, everybody’s story and narrative, and the concept itself is really reflective of them, and it’s just such a candid way of expressing themselves.”
Many of the students have been working on their films since August, Jack Cataline, a fifth-year in moving image production, said. Cataline’s film for the showcase, “Pogo Live! Gaming with Steve Harvey!?” is crafted to mimic a live-streaming website and features animation and experimental techniques.
“It’s this kind of surreal and weird commentary on not only streamers, but kind of how especially with COVID, our lives are increasingly digitized,” Cataline said. “We’re talking over Zoom through webcams and meeting for the first time –– it’s kind of about that aspect that we’re all experiencing right now, this kind of increased digital socializing.”
The pandemic affected not only the format of the final showcase event, but also the work that went into creating the films. Michael McKenna, a fourth-year in moving image production, said COVID-19 restrictions made filming and planning his project, “The Final Overture,” harder than he anticipated.
“We had an issue with someone who got in close contact with someone who was positive for COVID, so we had to push back a shooting day and it just kind of threw things off,” McKenna said. “It was like having to deal with things quickly and compromising.”
Lucas Atha, a fourth-year in moving image production, said they also had to modify their film production to fit COVID-19 restrictions, such as utilizing voiceovers when actors could not meet in person, but they are excited for others to see what they and their peers have been able to develop despite the roadblocks.
Atha’s project drew inspiration from the film “Call Me By Your Name,” which tells the story of a forbidden romance between a 17-year-old teenage boy and a 24-year-old man, and incorporated details of their own experiences as a queer person into their film “Speak Into Me Tongues of Stories Where They Fall in Love and Stay That Way Forever.”
“For me, it was important to create a document of queer life in the 2010s,” Atha said. “This film has helped me make sense of a lot of things that have happened in my life, and while it’s not my exact experience, it was the story I felt most ready to make.”
Swearingen said moving image production is a fairly new major program, established only four years ago. The program will eventually be housed under the Department of Theatre, Film and Media in the Arts District building, which is currently under construction.
“There will be a dedicated soundstage, there will be a dedicated equipment cage, and all those kinds of things,” Swearingen said. “Students will always see each other instead of right now, everything is kind of scattered so students are taking classes over here and over there versus you know, it’s gonna be more centralized.”
Cataline said even without the new building’s classrooms, the students have been able to work together in other ways, collaborating on films and sharing advice and resources.
“Especially with this class, I felt more open to sharing kind of rough ideas with people and getting feedback and helping other people out,” Cataline said. “Filmmaking in general is a collaborative process. If you watch a movie, the credits at the end that just roll and roll, I mean, hundreds of people work on projects.”
Swearingen said she believes film is a great medium for expressing all types of ideas and stories but there are many pieces and parts that have to come together smoothly for it to be successful.
“I think film is such a powerful tool to communicate those emotions and make people cry, make people happy, make people realize the powerful statement coming from the film,” Swearingen said. “But at the same time, as powerful as that is, it’s so difficult to actually do it right.”
