One of the best things about our vibrant arts community is the frequency with which our local artists give back, and one of the best examples of this is the Pens to Lens contest. For a second year now, the Champaign-Urbana Film Society will offer students K-12 an opportunity to see their words brought to life on the big screen. For area primary and secondary students with a love for writing and movies, this is like an announcement that this year everybody gets three birthdays.
The press release sent out by CUFS explains things pretty beautifully:
“The second annual Pens To Lens student screenwriting competition hosted by the Champaign-Urbana Film Society (CUFS) will launch this February 1st. The student writing portion will run through February 28th, and filmmakers will produce films for an August 2014 red carpet gala. All students in East Central Illinois are invited to participate and all teachers are encouraged to share the opportunity with their classes.
The Pens To Lens Screenwriting Competition was established with the goal of creating an opportunity for K-12 Students to participate in the local filmmaking community by writing original screenplays for short films. Without knowing what to expect, the CUFS received over 120 screenplay submissions from students aged 5 to 18.
Members of Champaign Movie Makers (CMM) produced NINE original films based on chosen submissions. Many other submissions were chosen by members of the Champaign-Urbana Design Organization (CUDO) to be adapted as movie posters. The films and posters premiered to a standing-room only crowd at a red carpet gala at the Art Theater in downtown Champaign.
This year, the Pens To Lens Committee is welcoming participation in film production from K-12 students. The Pens to Lens Committee is also sending professional filmmakers and designers to visit classrooms and after-school programs.
Additionally, the Film Society is putting out a call to community filmmakers, actors, and designers who are interested in participating in bringing student scripts to life.
The website PensToLens.com currently has submission guidelines and educational materials available. Once the competition starts, the site will allow students to indicate they would like to help on the filmmaking sets and teachers to request a filmmaker class visit. Any additional information can be found on the website or by contacting [email protected].”
At the risk of sounding unbiased, I find this program and its output to be kind of magical. I can’t helping thinking—when I see the movie posters and photos of the student writers—that this sort of opportunity would have been the Holy Grail to the grade school kid I used to be. Young writers in this area are monumentally fortunate to have such resources, and the actors, designers, and filmmakers in the Champaign-Urbana film community (and beyond) are to be commended for putting their time and talent into such a worthwhile and positive endeavor.
I spoke with AJ Christensen, an organizer of this year’s contest, to get a little more information about Pens to Lens 2014.
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Smile Politely: Obviously the response to last year’s event was positive. Were you surprised at all by the support and response?
AJ Christensen: Absolutely. Last year was the first year, and we were really not sure what to expect. Starting from scratch, we decided a strong turnout would constitute a couple dozen script submissions from students and we would be able to make a show out of 3-5 produced films. And then we got 120 script submissions at the end of February, which just had a snowballing effect: filmmakers in the community got excited by all the enthusiastic students, and we found 9 local directors willing to make movies. Designers in the community loved the idea and produced something like 50 posters for the films. And with all this enthusiasm, the gala became a huge deal not just for community artists, but for students and their families, and so we threw the kitchen sink at it. What was originally just going to be a screening turned into a whole red carpet event with a poster art showcase, and we even sold Oscar statuette sugar cookies at the Art Theater’s concession stand. The community really convinced us to make this event into a much bigger deal than we anticipated.
SP: Are there any local filmmakers who are already committed to being part of this year’s event?
Christensen: The filmmakers that will participate in making the films are organized through the Champaign Movie Makers (CMM) group in town. All of the directors from last year are active in CMM’s monthly meetings, and several other members who were hesitant to direct last year are looking forward to participating this year now that we have scheduled more time for the film production phase. Moreover, we know there are other independent filmmakers in the community who will want to take on a student-written film without the need to participate in CMM meetings. So we are counting on even more filmmakers being active this year, although the actual directors won’t have a chance to officially self-select until late March.
SP: Since Pens to Lens is now in its second year, is there anything you learned from the first competition that will help with the process this time around?
Christensen: Gosh, there’s a list a mile long of what we want to improve from last year. Already, we’ve tried updating our screenwriting curriculum materials, and being more communicative with more teachers earlier. (And if you’re a teacher that didn’t hear from us earlier, let us know so we can get you on our mailing list!) We are giving filmmakers more time to produce their films so that they can involve students in that process and so that they can film in fair weather. And the red carpet gala this year will be split into more than one show so that we don’t have to turn away so many audience members! Other updates to watch for are the new website, workshop opportunities for community artists relevant to filmmaking and poster design in collaboration with the Champaign Urbana Design Org (CUDO), and a push to send professional filmmakers and designers to classrooms and after-school programs.
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The Pens to Lens competition opens Saturday, and all of the necessary links are posted above. Teachers, parents, actors, directors, designers: now is the time to get involved. Learn more about this fantastic opportunity and encourage the young artists in our community to pursue their passion.
And Kids… Start writing.