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Three productions by students in the Ballard High School Digital Filmmaking Program have been named Official Selections of the All American Film Festival. The festival is the largest high school film festival in the world, and receives competition from high school filmmakers throughout the country. The festival will run October 9 - 11 in New York City at Planet Hollywood, AMC Theatres Times Square, and the historic Kings Theater. Films are evaluated by prestigious judges such as screenwriter Diablo Cody, documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, and actors Kristen Stewart and Dylan McDermott. Official Selections are eligible for awards in a number of categories. Awards will be presented at the Teen Indie Awards event at the conclusion of the festival.
Ballard’s Official Selection in the Documentary category is Clipped Wings by Coleman Andersen, Duncan Gowdy & Leo Pfeifer. The film tells the story of those most affected by the Boy Scouts ban on gay members. In the Drama category, Ballard students have two Official Selections. Air Pressure (by Coleman Andersen, Leo Pfeifer, and Josh Vredevoogd) examines the aftermath of a disaster at the Balloon Animal World Championships. Stolen (also by Coleman Andersen and Leo Pfeifer) questions the cost of revenge.
Since winning the Grand Jury’s WaveMaker Award at the Seattle International Film Festival last June, Audio Input, the documentary short by Duncan Boszko, Jack O’Neal, Piper Phillips & Sho Schrock, has been sought out by other international festivals. In July, it was an Official Selection at the Tumbleweed Film Festival. Currently, it’s an Official Selection at the CineShift Film Festival in Anacortes, and it is also an Official Selection of the All Seas Film Festival - an online event coming up on September 24th. The film explores the reasons and rewards of Seattle podcasters.
The Digital Filmmaking Program is part of the
free public education at Ballard High School, and is open to BHS students of
all grades. Since its beginning in the fall of 2001, students in the
program have won hundreds of awards at regional, national, and international
film festivals. Based on their portfolios they have won honors from the National
YoungArts Foundation and the National Academy of Television Arts
& Sciences (at the National and Northwest Emmy Awards) and
consistently gained admission to prestigious college programs of film and
television, sometimes with large scholarships and advanced placement.
(Recent program graduates have attended the Australian
Film, Television & Radio School, Chapman
University, Columbia College of Chicago, Emerson College, Loyola
Marymount University, New York University, the Rhode
Island School of Design, and the University of Southern California –
all college programs ranked by the Hollywood Reporter as among the best
for film and television production in the world.)
Some of the students have even made history. Jesse
Harris (’04) wrote and directed a feature film for his senior project.
The day he graduated, he learned that the LA-based FilmMates wanted to
purchase the film for theatrical release. (It opened in Landmark Theaters
the following April.) This makes Jesse the youngest person ever to write
and direct a feature film that received multi-state theatrical release.
In 2007, Kyle Seago (’07) and Jesse Harris (’04) co-founded the National Film
Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY). It has since become the largest
youth film festival in the world.
The program provides professional production
internships through a variety of media organizations and businesses, television
shows, and feature films. Numerous program alumni have gone on to careers
in the industry: writing or producing series television programs in Los
Angeles, producing music videos for major artists, directing feature films and commercials,
working on the camera crew or art department of feature films, producing media
for major corporations, or working as broadcast journalists.
