DON'T MISS THE BALLARD FILM FESTIVAL

Everyone is invited to a screening of new work by students in the Ballard High School Digital Filmmaking Program.  The Ballard Film Festival (BFF) will be on Saturday, June 16 at 7:00 pm in the Ballard High School auditorium.  The screening will feature short comedies and dramas as well as Public Service Announcements and a few music videos.  (Click here to screen the festival promo.)  Tickets ($10 for adults and $5 for students) will be sold at the door.  All proceeds benefit students in the Digital Filmmaking Program.

Past films that had their premiere at the BFF have gone on to honors from prestigious national and international film festivals, the National YoungArts Foundation, and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.  Many of these can now be seen on the Digital Filmmaking Program’s vimeo page.

BALLARD FILMMAKERS’ DOCUMENTARY FOR IMAX WILL PREMIERE AT SIFF

The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) has announced that Building Solutions, a short documentary produced by students in the Ballard High School Digital Filmmaking Program, is an Official Selection.  The film will be screened as part of FutureWave Shorts – a SIFF program that highlights the best films from around the world created by filmmakers aged 18 and under. 

In the fall of 2016, representatives of IMAX, working with the All American High School Film Festival in New York, selected the Ballard High School Digital Filmmaking Program to produce two short documentaries on environmental issues.  The goal was to encourage film students to use their talents to promote the environmental agenda of the United Nations.  Ballard’s filmmakers searched for compelling topics for this project.  One story that drew their attention was the development of the Living Building Challenge and the creation of the greenest commercial building in the world - the Bullitt Center in Seattle.  The result was Building Solutions.  The film was created by BHS Digital Film students Jonathan Bowers, Krystelle Kurz, Claire Elliott, Aven Fay, Duncan Kastner, Skala Leake, Elliott Atkinson and Annabelle Bowman-Mohn. 

The FutureWave Shorts will screen at 3pm on Monday, May 28 at the SIFF Uptown Cinema.  Tickets can be purchased online at www.SIFF.net.  

ACADEMY HONORS BALLARD HIGH SCHOOL FILMMAKERS WITH 19 NOMINATIONS

The Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) has announced nominees for the Northwest High School Awards of Excellence.  Students from the Ballard High School Digital Filmmaking Program earned 19 nominations.  These awards celebrate the most outstanding productions from five Northwest states: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.  Productions are nominated by NATAS industry professionals.  The winners will be announced on June 9 at the 55th Annual Northwest Emmy Awards.  

Ballard’s nominations span eight categories, reflecting the diverse skills students learn in the program.  In the categories of best Writer and best Audio/Sound, every production nominated was by Ballard's film students.  This is the twelfth year in a row that Ballard High School film students have been nominated by the Academy.  Last year they received 17 nominations.  

All the nominated productions had their premieres at the Ballard Film Festival (BFF).  This event screens new films by BHS Digital Filmmaking students at the end of every semester.  The next BFF will be Saturday, June 16 at 7 pm in the BHS auditorium.  Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for adults and will be sold at the door.  

News of these nominations comes on the heels of big wins at the Northwest High School Film Festival, held May 2, where the Ballard Filmmaking Program students led the pack of winners with 13 awards and honors across six different categories.  One of the Ballard films nominated by NATAS - the short documentary Building Solutions - will also be featured at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 28 at 3 pm at SIFF Uptown Cinema.

Here's the list of NATAS nominations by category.  (Many of these productions can be seen on the Digital Filmmaking Program’s vimeo page.) 

Best Short Form Fiction:

Bottled Emotions by Zach Boone, PJ Hase, Aidan Jereczek & Bailey Wall

Paul,Dark, and Handsome by Ellie Dynes, Jesse Romero, Miles Anderson & Cole Kastner

Richard by Wylie Soltes, Ethan Hawthorne-Dallas, Ian Colbeck & Aaron Mamaril

Best Short Form Non-Fiction:

Building Solutions by Krystelle Kurz, Jonathan Bowers, Claire Elliott, Aven Fay, Duncan Kastner, Skala Leake & Annabelle Bowman-Mohn

Onthe Backs of Salmon by Miles Whitworth, Cecilia O’Rollins, Chris Barrett, Martin Bolivar, Caroline Harader, Jasper Land, Maddie Lausted, Freeman Marshall & Aaron Miller

Best Long Form Non-Fiction:

Oso Strong by Maddie Lausted & Freeman Marshall

Best Public Service Announcement:

Stay Sharp by Claire Kilkenny, Hannah Weaver & Wylie Soltes

Best Animation/Graphics/Special Effects

Building Solutions by Krystelle Kurz, Jonathan Bowers, Claire Elliott, Aven Fay, Duncan Kastner, Skala Leake & Annabelle Bowman-Mohn

Richard by Wylie Soltes, Ethan Hawthorne-Dallas, Ian Colbeck & Aaron Mamaril

Best Audio/Sound

Paul,Dark, and Handsome by Ellie Dynes, Jesse Romero, Miles Anderson & Cole Kastner

Richard by Wylie Soltes, Ethan Hawthorne-Dallas, Ian Colbeck & Aaron Mamaril

Best Photographer/Editor:

BottledEmotions by Zach Boone, PJ Hase, Aidan Jereczek & Bailey Wall

City’scape by Brendan Hickey, Jonathan Bowers & Gracie Morris 

Oso Strong by Maddie Lausted & Freeman Marshall

Richard by Wylie Soltes, Ethan Hawthorne-Dallas, Ian Colbeck & Aaron Mamaril

Superman’s Superman by Nick Fay, Braiden Hayes, Ivan Lodefink, Freeman Marshall & Arturo Rodriguez

Best Writer

Onthe Backs of Salmon by Miles Whitworth, Cecilia O’Rollins, Chris Barrett, Martin Bolivar, Caroline Harader, Jasper Land, Maddie Lausted, Freeman Marshall & Aaron Miller

Oso Strong by Maddie Lausted & Freeman Marshall

Richard by Wylie Soltes, Ethan Hawthorne-Dallas, Ian Colbeck & Aaron Mamaril

NORTHWEST HIGH SCHOOL FILM FESTIVAL HONORS BHS FILMMAKERS

Students in the Ballard High School Digital Filmmaking Program led the pack of winners at the Northwest High School Film Festival on May 1, claiming thirteen awards and honors across six different categories at the Cinerama Theater in downtown Seattle.  Currently in its 20^th year, the NWHSFF is the largest and longest running festival in the Puget Sound region exclusively for high school filmmakers.  Hundreds of students from twenty-two high schools competed for awards in twelve different production categories.

Ballard students also won two of the four competitive scholarships presented at the event.  Skala Leake (’18) won the J-Dogg Scholarship, a $7,000 per year award that she can apply at the college of her choice.  She’ll be studying film at Columbia College of Chicago – a program ranked by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the best in the nation.  Veronica Redpath (’18) was one of only two filmmakers awarded a scholarship to The Prodigy Camp – an intensive week-long filmmaking workshop attended by gifted filmmakers from all over the world.         

The festival was judged by a panel of industry professionals and college media professors.  It was organized by the Media Educators for Excellence Team (MEET), an inter-district organization of high school media production teachers.  Sponsors included the Seattle Film Institute, The Studio School of Los Angeles, WashingtonState University, Central Washington University, Montana State University, the Cinerama Theatre, and Vulcan Enterprises. 

All the awarded productions from BHS had their premieres at the Ballard Film Festival (BFF).  This event screens new films by BHS Digital Filmmaking students at the end of every semester.  The next BFF will be Saturday, June 16 at 7 pm in the BHS auditorium.  Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for adults and will be sold at the door.

 

Here are Ballard’s Northwest High School Film Festival winners by category.  (Many of these can now be screened on the BHS Digital Filmmaking Program's vimeo site.)

AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE

Comedic Narrative

  Paul, Dark, and Handsome

  Ellie Dynes, Jesse Romero, Miles Anderson & Cole Kastner

  Richard

  Wylie Soltes, Ian Colbeck, Ethan Hawthorne-Dallas & Aaron Mamaril

Commercial

  Let There be Bacon

  Ellie Dynes, Alec Gabbert & Julian Whitworth

  Your Neighborhood Bookstore

  Jasper Swift, Caleb Flynn & Naomi Glunz

Documentary

  On the Backs of Salmon

  Miles Whitworth, Cecilia O’Rollins, Martin Bolivar, Aaron Miller, Chris Barrett, Jasper Land, Maddie Lausted & Freeman Marshall

Dramatic Narrative

  Bottled Emotions

  Zach Boone, PJ Hase, Aiden Jereczek & Bailey Wall

Public Service Announcement

   Locked Doors

   Drew Hedlund, Calvin Johnson & Sandro Rios

  TB Time Bomb

  Casey Chamberlain, Maddie Lausted, Freeman Marshall & Elliott Russell

Satire/Mockumentary/Parody

  Road Trip Week

  Ethan Hawthorne & Jessica Lueck

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Commercial

  Truth Bar

  Aven Fay, Liam Bonds & Zach Boone

  How to Lime

  Martin Bolivar, Krystelle Kurz & Caroline Lavallee  

Documentary                 

  Building Solutions

  Krystelle Kurz, Jonathan Bowers, Claire Elliott, Aven Fay, Duncan Kastner, Skala Leak, Elliott Atkinson & Annabelle Bowman-Mohn

Dramatic Narrative

  I’ll Be There

  Veronica Redpath, Maureen Brown & Claude Brun