Tag: #filmfestival

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Cinematic storytelling has the power to captivate and inspire audiences, and that’s what Grove City College’s Department of Communication & Visual Arts plans on bringing to the campus community again this year. The third annual Lux Mea Film Festival will make its anticipated return to the college at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 29 in Crawford Auditorium. 

The film festival, hosted by students in an advanced Communication Arts course, has featured over a dozen student-produced, short films each year since its debut in spring 2021. The event is entirely created and organized by students enrolled in Professor Gregory Bandy’s Special Events and Promotions class. 

Attendees who purchased festival passes are encouraged to attend the red-carpet reception, a new opportunity this year in which the public in attendance can meet the student filmmakers following the two-hour premiere. The after-party will be held at 9:30 p.m. in Carnegie Alumni Center. 

Bandy, whose previous event planning experience includes Asbury University’s own Highbridge Film Festival, decided to arrange a similar event at Grove City College to bring together the student body and local community every spring for years to come. 

“It’s just a great community event to experience a campus audience reacting to original student stories,” he said. 

Lux Mea Film Festival is named for the motto of the college, meaning “My Light.” The festival exists to illuminate truth through films by featuring the work of student narratives. 

Bandy stressed the importance of filmmaking and how more students should use their natural gifts to start becoming involved in the craft. 

“Learning to tell stories that matter is increasingly important in our culture and society. The skill is needed at all levels and in all areas,” Bandy said. “And in my humble opinion, I think it’s the quintessential liberal arts experience — it involves, writing, drama, art, music, technology, math, psychology and problem-solving skills at a major level.” 

With each new year comes new student talent to the festival. 

Junior Luke Owen said he “fell in love with filmmaking” when one of his friends approached him for working together on a short film after offering Owen the role of director of photography. 

“Since then, I have turned my newfound hobby into a business, acquiring all the necessary equipment and shooting professionally as a freelancer,” Owen said. 

Last year, Owen shared the award of Best Cinematography with junior Aaron Phillips for “The Things Above,” a thriller short film. 

Junior Elliot Eyre, who won Best Original Score also for “The Things Above” last April, said he is looking forward to attending the Lux Mea Film Festival once again. 

“This year’s film festival is going to be insane for student films, the increase in quality is about to go up exponentially yet again and I absolutely cannot wait to see what comes out this year.” 

All Grove City College students are welcome to submit their film projects from April 10 through April 17, the deadline being 12 p.m. The film submission form is available on the Lux Mea website. Further criteria for entries can be found at luxmeafilmfestival.com/submissions for students planning to participate. 

“Every artist was once an amateur. I would hope attendees see the value in supporting student filmmakers. I tell my students to remember, that all these tedious tasks of a visual storyteller can all come together to change someone’s life,” Bandy said. 

Tickets for the festival go on sale Monday, April 17 in the Breen Student Union. For more information about the Lux Mea Film Festival or how to submit films to the event, visit the festival website luxmeafilmfestival.com or contact us at luxmeafilmfest@gmail.com. 

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NOW OPEN!

The Lux Mea Film Festival of Grove City College invites you to submit original films for entry into the film festival competition! 

Specifications  

1. Films must fall into one of the following categories: 

  • Narrative  
  • Documentary  
  • Animations or Stop Motion  
  • Super Short (less than 3 minutes) 
  • Experimental  

2. Music used in films MUST be cleared and licensed properly, unless it is original and/or in the public domain. 

3. Lux Mea Film Festival will be accepting submissions from April 1 – April 11.  To submit your films, a box labeled “Lux Mea Film Festival” will be placed outside of HAL 200K starting April 1.  Your submission must be formatted exactly in the following:  

  • film must be on a thumb drive. 
  • submission form (located on the website) must be completed, printed, and placed in a white envelope with the thumb drive.   
  • film must abide by video specifications.  To find the list of video specifications go to our website, navigate to the submissions tab, and locate the “file specification and upload instructions” PDF.  
  • include $5 entry fee in envelope.   

4. The most important video specifications are the following, but please see the “file specification and upload instructions” PDF on the Submissions tab for more specification details: 

  • MPEG-4 file (.mp4) with H.264 Codec  
  • Video Resolution: 1920 X 1080p 24 fps (23.976)  
  • Data rate: Target bitrate 20 Mbps, Max bitrate 24 Mbps (Using High encoding profile)  
  • Audio: AAC codec, 320 kbps, 48kHz, Stereo 

5. Deadline for submission is 12 PM April 11, 2022.   

For more information visit our website at luxmeafilmfestival.com or contact the Communication and Marketing Team at Luxmeafilmfest@gmail.com.

Good luck!   

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The first ever Lux Mea Film Festival was a success, with over 300 tickets sold! Here is a list of the 2021 winning films that were shown on April 30th:

Best Narrative (1), Audience Favorite, Best Visual Effects, Best Performance: 4 Steps to Make A Good Impression – Noah Lawrence

Best Narrative (2), Best Screenplay: The Confession – Malachi Abbott

Best Documentary: God, Family, Grades, Football (GFGF) – Ayden Gutierrez and Aaron Phillips

Best Super Short, Best Editing: Condiment Standoff – Wes Gray

Best Cinematography, Best Audio Editing/Mixing: Treebeard Brown– Catie Fluharty and Addie Reynolds

Want to watch these winning films? Click the Showcase tab on the website menu for links to the films on Vimeo!

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The following student films have been selected for the first annual Lux Mea Film Festival at the Guthrie Theatre on April 30th at 7pm and May 1st at 2pm.

The Confession by Malachi Abbott

Silent Applause by Stephanie Bonifield and Andrew McDevitt

One More by Matthew Schoonover

Beauty in the Beans by Sydney Laughlin and Gracie Turnbaugh

Banana Boy by Sydney Laughlin

GFGF (God, Family, Grades, Football) by Ayden Gutierrez and Aaron Phillips

Mud to Mugs by Matt Schoonover and Jacob Shirk

How to Tie Shoes by Noah Lawrence

Busy Bees by David Criswell, Margaret Langgin, and Maddie Tipple

4 Tips to Make a Good Impression by Noah Lawrence

Ooh Baby by Barnabas Chen, Wes Gray, and David Zimmerman

The Condiment Standoff by Wes Gray

Treebeard by Catie Fluharty and Addie Reynolds

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(GROVE CITY, PA) – Grove City College Communication Arts program is organizing its first student film festival and needs your films. The Lux Mea Film Festival will be premiering selected films at the Guthrie Theatre on April 30th and May 1st.   

The Lux Mea Film Festival is being conceptualized, developed and produced by a new Communication Arts class, Special Events and Promotions.  The class is taught by Professor Gregory Bandy, who had a similar class produce an annual student film festival for 13 years at his previous university in Kentucky.  

The Kentucky festival, under Bandy’s direction and the efforts of hundreds of talented students, became what a local newspaper called, one of “the top cultural events in the bluegrass area.” Thousands attended the festival through the years and its success gained the attention and participation of over 40 film professionals and Hollywood judges such as “The Shape of Water” actor Doug Jones, the sound designer for “Braveheart,” Peter Lehman, the director for “Mulan,” Barry Cook and Michael Flaherty, president of Walden Media, the studio that produced the “Chronicles of Narnia.”  Now, Bandy wants to bring this same success to Grove City.   

“We wanted to host a film festival at Grove City because I believe there’s an enormous amount of untapped storytelling talent here,” Bandy says. “Like sports and music, visual narrative media talent has to be developed, and a film festival is one of the best ways to encourage and reward such talent.”   

The film festival is debuting as the Lux Mea Film Festival, which means “my light.”  

“Our whole mission of storytelling,” Bandy says, “should be rooted in the values of telling the truth about it means to be a human being made in the image of God.”   

In its first year, Lux Mea is only accepting student films made by Grove City students who have produced their films while being enrolled in the school during the past four years. The deadline to enter the films is 11 a.m. April 14.  Films submitted to Lux Mea will be judged for acceptance based on their technical quality and engaging storytelling strength.  All students are encouraged to submit their films.  The Lux Mea Film Festival is open to many creative expressions but is dedicated to maintaining a worldview in alignment with the college’s culture and values. 

Bandy hopes that this class can help create the foundation for years of future Lux Mea Film Festivals and establish Grove City College as a creative storytelling center. “Prof B,” as many of his students refer to him, says the festival will be accepting submissions Apr. 7 to Apr. 14. For festival updates and to learn more about the details and specifications for submitting a film, visit the submissions page. 

“Something very magical takes place when the lights go down in a theater with hundreds of people in the room.  You’ve poured yourself into creatively crafting imagery, music and light into a story that hopefully makes people think, laugh, and maybe helps us see ourselves in a new, honest, even a funny way. It’s important that we tell stories that matter,” Bandy said, “So tell them.”