When movie credits roll, most audiences tend to stand, stretch and walk out of the theater thinking about the narrative they just witnessed.
At the UTSA Directors Workshop film screening on Wednesday at Santikos Palladium, it’s a fair bet that the crowd will remain riveted to their seats throughout the credits, eager to see their own names on screen.
The red carpet screening is the culmination of months of work by 50 students from film and media programs at UTSA, San Antonio College, the University of Incarnate Word, Northwest Vista College and SAY Sí who contributed to the production of a 22-minute film, titled The Compass, in various roles behind and in front of the camera.
“We always commit to making sure that the whole film [education] community in town is benefiting from our reach and our resources,” said UTSA Film and Media Studies program director Paul Ardoin.
Collaborative art form
Guided by professional mentors from around the country, students conceived storylines and scripted scenes in five separate groups of 10 students, then joined the five stories into one movie, each story focused on a magnetic compass that possesses supernatural powers.
Then on two cold days in January, five student groups shot scenes at Antiques on Broadway, Gravves Coffee, the UTSA Library and outdoors in City Cemetery #1. Gaffers handled electrical tasks, grips took care of lighting, boom operators held microphones, camera operators recorded the action and costumed actors played assigned characters.
Professional mentors guided the process, helping students learn how to weave together the various elements that go into successful film production.
Film industry professional Tiana Marenah praised the students for already displaying experience with various aspects of filmmaking. “They’ve all made some kind of movie, so that made it super easy. And they all clearly really love the collaborative nature of this particular art form,” Marenah said.
Originally from Alaska, Marenah has worked professionally in Asia and teaches in New York while maintaining a base in Los Angeles, where much of the American film industry is centered. She said her mission as a teacher is to impart the importance of finding a community and building a sustainable career in this non-traditional field.
She had observed that many of the UTSA students were seeking to build community where they live, rather than having to leave to pursue their filmmaking dreams, which Ardoin has said is a goal of the program.
“Everybody locally has some kind of pride. They all are trying to figure out how to further their community and film here,” she said.
Love for San Antonio
Nicolas Rodriguez, in the role of director for the shoot at City Cemetery #1 on the East Side, echoed Marenah’s observation.
“I’m a huge fan of collaboration when it comes to my peers and fellow filmmakers here in San Antonio,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve always felt like San Antonio has been such an underutilized place for stories to be told, so I would love to help in any way to help other filmmakers like myself to tell their stories here.”
Rodriguez and Amy Yarbrough, scriptwriter for the cemetery scene, are both recent graduates of the UTSA Film and Media Studies program. They chose to stick around to gain experience working alongside professionals in the directors workshop and hope to apply their skills locally.
Yarbrough said she appreciated what the visiting professional filmmakers — Marenah and cinematographer Anna Stypko — had to say about the goal of filmmaking in San Antonio, “which is where I’d like to make all of my stuff if I were to make stuff in the future because I love San Antonio.”
‘From your own story’
Diversity among students and faculty is of major importance to the locally-focused program, said UTSA professor and director of video production Ernest Hernandez.
“You want to have instructors and faculty that are relatable to the student experience. You want to have faculty that represent not just diversity in who they are, but in diversity of thought,” Hernandez said. “You want to have the ability to show [students] that the best films are made from your own story.”
Learning from a mix of teachers who live and work elsewhere and professors who reside in San Antonio, including filmmakers Jim Mendiola and Guillermina Zabala Suárez and actor Jesse Borrego, “gets you comfortable with being in San Antonio, being from San Antonio or the surrounding area, thinking about how your story really is gonna resonate across the world.”
Zabala Suárez said opening the directors workshop and similar past workshops to students from other schools creates diversity among the students, who ultimately create the stories and make the films.
“There’s a real variety,” she said. “A wide range of issues come up from different backgrounds, in terms of different perspectives.”
And each of those 50 students will see their names emblazoned on the silver screen as the credits — their credits — roll.
The Wednesday screening runs 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Seating is limited, Ardoin said, as students generally bring family and friends to celebrate their work and screenings tend to fill to capacity. Other student films from UTSA, Northwest Vista College, East Central High School and Communication Arts High School will also be shown.
