On April 25 at the Palace Theatre in Waterbury the short film, Unconditional, created by Woodland’s own Digital Media class stole the hearts of the audience and judges then brought home the award of the night that would make all their hard work worth it.
The film was created by a group of talented students in Mr. Riello’s Digital Media class: Meghan Terry, Drew Chura, Aidan Music, Ewelina Lemanski, Kristen Cullen, Rosemary Donnely, Alexa Charertte, Mike Marti, Matt Terry, Jack Walsh, and Andrew Wisneski. Each student contributed their own ideas and style to create a powerful film that was awarded Best Fictional Film and Audience’s Choice.
The short film shows a military father promising his young daughter, played by child actress Christa St. Jarre, he will be back and leaving her with a teddy bear. It then shows the girl drawing pictures of her father, having tea parties, jumping in the rain, playing with her dog, and spending time with her bear in her father’s absence. The end of the video shows the girl’s father returning and the child dropping the bear to hug her father. The music found on YouTube by a German artist, Denny Schneidmeasser, made the video that much more powerful and captured the audience and judges.
The idea of the video was brought up by Drew Chura when he had found Denny’s music on YouTube.
“I was listening because I just really liked his music and that one particular song that we used came on,” said Chura. “I was just thinking of what type of images came to mind when I heard the melodies and all the different sounds. The little girl and the father came to mind and I knew we just had to use it.”
He then described how he had texted Aidan Music, whose response was, “it has to fit.” To participate in the 84-hour Film Challenge the team had to follow certain rules. They were given 84 hours and had to have certain criteria such as an orange prop, a record player, a particular quote, and specific camera shots.
All of the work came together perfectly and created a moving film. The entire audience and judges were touched as the images of the military father returning to his daughter flashed on the screen.
“A lot of people can connect and relate to a military father. We used that to our advantage and tried to bring out an emotion in the audience. That is what really makes a winning video,” explained Music.
