Organizer: Grants PAH-Fest a huge success

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — By all accounts the second annual Public Access Hollywood Festival, or PAH-Fest, was a success with several area residents entering filmmaking contests as well as a large out-of-state entry contingent.

Doug Bocaz-Larson, digital film and theater arts instructor at New Mexico State University-Grants campus, said there were about 500 people in all, including participants and those attending events, from last Wednesday through Sunday night.

About half were from out of the area including as far away as the East Coast, he said.

There were four winners this year, one each for the categories of "Mobilflix," "Cell Phone Art," "Your Tech," and a special "Excellence in Creative Arts" award, Bocaz-Larson said.

In the Mobilflix category, six winning entries who were selected from online submissions of ideas for short digital films and three "outlaw" teams competed.

"Two of the outlaw teams did not finish in time and the third was disqualified for inappropriate contest," Bocaz-Larson said.

Winners
The winner of the Mobilflix category, was the three-person team of Max Mitchell, Molly Carn and John Graham, of High Rolls, N.M. The team won $1,000 for its six-minute film on St. Joseph's Mission in San Fidel.

Part of being a selected winning team in the Mobilflix category is that equipment is provided as well as a crew of NMSU film students to help with the filming.

A coach is also provided to each team and the High Rolls team's coach was Charlie O' Dowd, an award-winning filmmaker of commercials and with experience on major films such as "Young Guns" and "City Slickers," Bocaz-Larson said.

At one point during the filming everything seemed to go wrong for the winners, Bocaz-Larson said. They used a JVC camera, which was not compatible with the college's equipment.

A student in Bocaz-Larson's class had to put together a daisy chain of cameras and computers to get the film out of the camera so it could be entered in the contest.

Winners in the other two categories were Bill Nevis of Albuquerque in the "Cell Phone Art," and Danny Stanfield of Grants in "Your Tech."

Nevis's one-minute film was on the competition's topic of poetry. He did an interpretive reading of a poem.

Stanfield's winning entry was a piece on himself, the topic being "self-portraits." He used a lot of special effects including lightning, which Bocaz-Larson said he liked.

There were several entries in each category and all the films are already available to be viewed online at the PAH-Fest's Web site: www.pahfest.com.

'Excellence' award
The winner of the Cibola Arts Council's "Excellence in Creative Art," award is Daniel Salazar of Tijeras.

All winners received $250 cash except Mobilflix, which received the $1,000.

Salazar's film was a Mobilflix movie and the topic was "curenduras," which is people who are healers. These are people who use traditional medicines, including Asian medicines and are considered alternative healers from medical doctors.

"This was the most artistic movie of all the entries," Bocaz-Larson said.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197 or fax (505) 287-2581.