By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Film students at Missouri Western State University will take the Griffon Film Festival to the public for the first time this Friday.
Professor Toby Lawrence says though this is the 7th annual Griffon Film Festival, it’s the first time students have shown their films to the public. The festival gets underway at the Missouri Theater in downtown St. Joseph Friday evening.
“So the first half of the program will be like the family-friendly section,” Lawrence tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “Then, we’ll have a quick intermission, like 10 minutes, and then some of the other films that might have some more adult themes will show. We’ll have an award ceremony. We’re even going to have a Q and A with the students, the film makers, so they can all come up and respond if the audience has questions.”
Lawrence says graduates of the Missouri Western program can go into a variety of careers, from Hollywood to local commercials or any position that uses videos extensively.
Mackenzie Osborn, a senior from Savannah, says her experience in the Performing and Cinematic Arts program helped her land her position as Communications Coordinator for the Second Harvest Community Food Bank in St. Joseph.
“My ability to use the camera and my ability to use the editing software that we got. It kind of helped me there,” Osborn tells Birr. “A couple of us have had professional jobs up in Kansas City already, working on film productions, doing commercials, or production assistant jobs.”
Nine films will be shown in all. Two are documentaries, but the remaining films offer a wide range of themes, from romance to sci fi.
“The interesting part is that all of these are very different styles,” according to Osborn. “So, every 10 to 12 minutes is going to be a completely different experience for people who are attending.”
The film festival at the Missouri Theater gets underway at five o’clock Friday evening. Students, both high school and college, get in for free. Otherwise, it’s $5 at the door.