By Billy Ludt
Youngstown State University students will be showing independently shot films this Wednesday as part of the April Fools Film Festival.
The April Fools Film Festival will take place Wednesday at the recital hall located in Bliss Hall. The event is open to the public and will run from 7 p.m. until all films are shown.
Bill Brophy is an adjunct faculty member and the technological coordinator in the communications department at YSU. He conceived the event in hopes of garnering participation from telecommunication and art students in creating independently filmed movies.
“We’re trying to stimulate and get something started to encourage independent film developers on campus,” Brophy said. “Right now our department isn’t geared toward that kind of single camera work.”
The April Fools Film Festival’s entries are filmed with a central idea, which Brophy also came up with: “it started with a joke.”
“What I’m really looking for is almost anybody who is interested in making films on campus and can show it,” Brophy said. “Some pranks aren’t so much fun. It could be more than just comedy.”
Brophy hopes that the film festival will become a yearly event and eventually involve telecommunication programs in surrounding technical and high schools.
Awards for the films shown will be refurbished bowling trophies because, as Brophy put it, it’s April Fools Day.
“If somebody has a film they shot on campus, come on down and we’ll take a look at it,” Brophy said.
Jim Stickel is a senior telecommunications major at YSU and will be attending the April Fools Film Festival.
“Nowadays anybody can get a camera and go out and film something,” Stickel said. “It will be interesting to see the turnout and people who share that interest. Hopefully it got out and people across campus are joining or showing something there”
Stickel, formerly a member of the YSU Film Club, directs the YouTube series “Relatively,” and also filmed “The Story of Pete the Snow Penguin,” a crossover short about YSU’s flightless avian mascot.
“It’s nice to have a theme to play off of,” Stickel said. “It might be intimidating if you have to come up with something yourself.”
Courtney Kensinger, a fourth year telecommunications student, is submitting a medical commercial spoof about celiac disase to the April Fools Film Festival.
“Small events like this are really neat,” Kensinger said. “We absolutely need more of them around campus. We have screenings of things, but no movie festivals.”