Alex Hodges, Campus Carrier Arts & Living Editor
Viking Fusion will host its High School Film Festival on Friday at 7 p.m. in the McAllister Auditorium. There will be viewings of some of the 13 films that were submitted by students from four different counties in Georgia, and students with the best films will be awarded for their work.
According to Viking Fusion Adviser Steven Hames, the parameters for the films were simple. Adhering to standard content guidelines, the films could be two to five minutes in length, of any genre, and they had to be made by students in grades nine through twelve.
“We wanted to focus on high school students, partially to make students aware of Berry, the department of communication, the filmmaking major and Viking Fusion, but also to reach out into an area where there aren’t a whole lot of competitions or festivals geared toward high school filmmaking,” Hames said.
Hames said that there are Berry alumni teaching at local schools and that Berry and Viking Fusion could use the festival as an opportunity to help them out and give some of their students recognition.
Senior visual communication major Ellie Harmon is a studio assistant and graphic designer for Viking Fusion. She helped in the brainstorming process and designed the graphic for the festival. Harmon also helped Fusion’s public resources team reach out to different high schools to find entrants.
“It’s beneficial for high schoolers to be able to have an official award on films that they’ve done,” Harmon said. “They might be interested in film, and this is sort of an outlet.”
Senior Public Relations Coordinator for Viking Fusion Hannah Clark is glad to see the event taking place. Having worked in admissions at Berry, she is proud to see work being done that could potentially bring in students. She said that they aimed for high school for a couple of reasons.
One reason for the aim at high school, according to Clark, is that Assistant Professor of Communication Curt Hersey pushed for high school talent inclusion. Hames and Clark both said that Hersey ended up at Berry after he learned about it through a film festival.
Another reason is that, with changes in the communication department and the addition of a filmmaking major, students who have interests in the field can use Viking Fusion’s festival to learn more about the programs offered by the department.
Clark, as a senior, is proud of the work that she and the other members of Viking Fusion have done.
“The fact that it’s actually on the ground and rolling, that’s kind of a big achievement and kind of a good way to end my senior year because it could possibly be something that’s growing in future years,” Clark said.