Saddleback students show off their films at 2021 Newport Film Festival

Saddleback students walk the red carpet to take pictures at Starlight Triangle Cinemas in Newport Beach on Oct. 24. Marcus Rentziperis | Lariat

Saddleback students of the Cinema/Television/Radio department (CTVR) debuted their short films at the Starlight Triangle Cinemas for the 2021 Newport Film Festival on Oct. 24. A total of 11 student films were shown at the theater with genres reaching from documentaries to fictional stories. 

Student’s families, friends and professors congregated at the theater to support the students. In the lobby of the movie theater was a red carpet, where students were lining up to take pictures with each other and to truly give themselves the spotlight of the event. 

Blake Thom, a former U.S. Marine, now Saddleback documentarian, wrote, directed, produced and filmed a documentary, “My Home, My Heart,” about the surfer Liv Stone. Stone is a woman who has been born with a disability that has deformed her arms and hands. The documentary shows her story and how she overcame her challenges.

“I just kinda started filming for her and I took Hiro’s class and I knew I wanted to do a film on her immediately,” Thom said. “Honestly she is my inspiration. It’s pretty cool seeing her out there doing what she does, and spoiler: she wins the world championships.”

Thom has worked with multiple nonprofits that specializes in helping with disabled people. More specifically with the “healing power of the ocean” Thom expressed. This is how he was able to meet Stone and her coach, and has since become close friends with them. 

“My goal is to inspire people to do what they think they can’t do,” Thom said. “She’s from Pennsylvania, a landlocked state, and had to drive two hours away to go surf. Just the determination to fulfill her goal is super inspiring to me and is kinda what I want to do for everybody else.” 

Hiro Konishi oversees the documentary division of the CTVR program at Saddleback. Thom worked closely with Konishi for his aid in creating the documentary that he wanted to make. Konishi has a set way that he has his students create their films to aid them along the path to make the type of film they want to make.

“First they pitch their idea, they are going to give me the plan for production and post-production, so I am going to check to see if their idea is feasible or not,” he said. As far as it is feasible and have a good idea in detail, I am going to let them do whatever they want to do. If they have trouble, I have to step in from time to time, but mostly I trust their creativity and unique personality as a filmmaker.” 

The student’s creativity is not held down by the instructors but is guided to make something that they can be proud of and realistic for their skill levels and technological ceilings. The instructors are there as a guide to help the students through the difficult parts of planning their production and post-production as well as keeping them on track.

Many of the students, depending on when they filmed, had to obey the COVID regulations. They had to show their creative side in a different way compared to other years students. Sammy Goyal, Kevin Perry and Fernando Bojorquez figured out how to get around the COVID restrictions by making a film about a live stream. 

The film “Sunny” is about a guy who livestreams himself hoping to get more followers. Through the livestream, he connects with a viewer and over time they learn that they have the same favorite band and end up meeting in real life to go to a concert together. 

“We came up with the idea of just kinda having every scene in the same place,” Perry said. “It all took place in my room and the last scene, which was outside at a park, was just my driveway.”

This made production for the film much easier for the crew as most of the aspects of the film would be added in while in post production. 

Ryan Hoskins, a film production professor at Saddleback, hosted lessons over Zoom to his students for feedback on the scripts and ideas for their projects. “Sunny” was one of the projects that came out of the feedback through Zoom meetings and following COVID guidelines. 

“I basically had to reconvoice the entire class from the ground up,” Hoskins said. “Traditionally we get into a class, they work in groups of like 15 and we get maybe three films for the year. I’m not going to lie, I was kinda making it up as I went along, but it seemed to work out.” 

Hoskins said the students exceeded his expectations with what the students had to go through to make their films, by using their own equipment, filming at locations that they had access to and were COVID guideline friendly and working in groups of only two to three, compared to the typical 15 for the class.   

The 2021 Newport Film Festival was a moment for the students that got their films in the festival. They walked the red carpet, took pictures, interviewed and got to see the reactions to their films. All while fighting against the restrictions of COVID. 

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