Film class plans new movies, festival

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Digital filmmaking, producing webcasts, making short documentaries, specifically for the Internet, and creating cell phone short movies are projects being looked at this spring by the film class at New Mexico State University-Grants under the guidance of instructor Doug Bocaz-Larson.

Last year the class produced a short film, "The Kinky Karate Callgirls," of which Bocaz-Larson said he is thinking of renaming "because it is not as kinky or as R-rated as you night think."

Two projects, one a feature film 90 minutes long and another shorter film, are scheduled to be produced by the 20 or so students who are enrolled in the spring semester class, which begins Jan. 18 and ends May 11.

Making films digitally is the wave of the future predicted Bocaz-Larson.

And the future is now in Bocaz-Larson's class.

Film plans
The feature film planned for this semester is titled, "Lady in the Trunk," and is a mystery about a woman who knows who she is but cannot figure out how she got into a trunk, Bocaz-Larson said.

It is to be made into a DVD.

The other major project for the students this semester is a shorter digital film, titled "Like a Redneck." It will have two girls and two guys — one from the city and one, a redneck from the country — in a light comedy of misunderstandings, he said.

The class is also undertaking webcasts that will be serialized like similar webcasts on YouTube.com and MySpace.com, popular Web sites open to the general public for posting just about anything.

The webcasts, called "Chihuahua Man," will be about a nervous person who can channel his nervous energy into earthquakes. They will be in two to three minute chapters and placed on the Internet, primarily on the college's film class's Web site pocolocofilm.com.

Poco Loco Films is the name the film class chose to be the name of its production company.

It is still called filming, even though no film is actually used.

Instead of relying on traditional 35 mm film, used in Hollywood for decades, directors using digital cameras and computers can now look at a scene instantly on computerized replay instead of waiting hours for film to be developed and printed out to be run through a projector to see the scenes.

Second PAH-Fest
Filmmaker Christopher Coppola, who hosted the first-ever Public Accessible Hollywood-Fest (PAH-Fest) last year, will again host the second PAH-Fest and film contest in Grants.

This year, it is scheduled for June 6-10 at the college, Bocaz-Larson said.

PAH-Fest allows anyone to use new technology to empower people digitally, Coppola said at last year's event.

"I believe everyone has a spirit of creativity. There is an artist in everyone," he said.

"We can use technology to help people look at things, cell phones with cameras, webcams, and make a mini-movie."

Last year Coppola predicted filmmaking using the traditional film and developing it in a lab will be dead in the next five to six years as the mainstream studios figure out how to provide security for digital movies and realize the lesser costs involved.

The PAH-Fest will offer a variety of categories for people to enter, including cellular telephone movies and Web site films. Anyone wishing to participate in this year's event, or to volunteer to assist with the event is asked to contact Bocaz-Larson at the college at (505) 285-4464.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com