On March 4th, the Virginia State University film club began their editing process for their first short film of the year. The student lead production team uses their classroom experiences to go through the production process. This is in preparation for the BEA 48 hour short film competition that involves full-time students and faculty members from many other universities.
The Virginia State University film club is an extension of the Mass Communications club led by Jocelyn Burgess, a senior mass communications major. As the president of the mass communications club and director of the film club, she uses her experiences to guide the members through the pre-production, production, and post-production process.
The short film began its filming process in fall 202 and will be completed by the end of the spring semester. Throughout this process, many of the actors and behind the scenes crew have seen this experience as a great opportunity for them to learn to grow in the film world like Hannah Taylor.
Taylor is one of the many film club members with career aspirations to become an actress herself.
“My experience has been pretty good. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about the career you could want and meet people that have a similar interest to you and are serious in it. It’s helping me keep building my craft and skills.” Taylor said.
She is one of the lead actresses in the most recent film, playing the main protagonist.
Taylor explains that the film club has made an impact on her career. She has experience on stage with theater and musical theatre during her time at Henrico High School.
However, getting the experience acting in front of the camera is sharpening her skills to achieve her goal of eventually acting in movies, TV shows, and Broadway.
In addition to her on-camera role, she’s getting her hands dirty doing behind-the-scenes work as one of the video editors and camera operators.
“It’s nice to work together on scripts, ideas and editing because I’m interested in directing, producing, writing, and editing as well. With the team, it helps you learn other skills that you haven’t done yet, whether acting, working with the camera, writing, producing, directing, editing, etc. It’s a great opportunity and experience and I look forward to seeing how it grows,” Taylor said.
The future of the VSU film club will be to join bigger events to showcase their talents to a wider audience. BEA Festival of Media Arts Student Film & Video Competition is a great place for student actors, future directors, and videography students to show off their skills in video production.
With a wide range of categories, students from different colleges and universities will be able to showcase their creativity in categories like animation, music video, promotional videos, and many more. The winning team will have the opportunity to be showcased during the BEA Convention.
Students looking to showcase their skills, talents, and ideas on a larger scale with fellow students with the same passion should plan on joining the VSU film club.
