In mid-April at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, a small herd of student filmmakers donning the same white shirts stamped with the Sprite logo brushed shoulders with Hollywood celebrities.
Their uniformity was entrancing. Comedy guru Judd Apatow approached them with an inquisitive look on his face.
“We stuck out like a sore thumb, and it was a little bit embarrassing. But it actually ended up being a good thing because people noticed us walking around. And Judd Apatow was one of those people, so we told him about the contest we were in,” said Simon Savelyev, a second-year graduate directing student in the School of Theater, Film and Television.
Savelyev, who cites Apatow as one of his biggest influences, was selected as a finalist in the Sprite Films Program along with fellow second-year graduate directing student Steven Huffaker. Together, the duo makes up one of two teams from UCLA.
Eight student filmmakers pulled from four different universities were selected to have their original screenplays turned into short films. One film will be selected to be screened in theaters in November.
The other team is comprised of Sandy Stenzel, a third-year graduate production and cinematography student, and Josephine Green, a third-year graduate screenwriting student.
Scripts submitted to the Sprite Films Program were to be inspired by a Universal Pictures film. For Stenzel and Green, inspiration for their creative text came from their feelings toward cinema’s ability to elicit nostalgia.
“We wanted to do something that went through the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and present day, so we came up with a concept that would allow us to give a lot of homage to different Universal films,” Green said.
The resulting product was “Love Refreshed,” which tells the story of a boy named Charlie who doesn’t believe in love and then has to travel through the decades to find the perfect kiss.
The film by Savelyev and Huffaker, titled “Prom Night,” has roots in the ’80s teen comedy, “Sixteen Candles.” In a way, their film draws on the Universal Pictures movie by emphasizing the thrills of adolescence.
“Basically, it’s a comedy about a couple of dorky kids who end up with a really nice, classic muscle car on the night of prom night. Except they don’t end up picking up babes, but rather a motley crew of assorted people,” Savelyev said.
Though both UCLA teams took a similar creative path for their scripts, the way in which each of them arrived at filmmaking was quite different.
“For me, I was always filmmaking from an early age. I had to make the decision to start doing it as a serious thing, but it never stopped being something that I would compulsively do during every phase of my life,” Huffaker said.
In the same manner, Stenzel said her cinematic inclinations began when she started making short films with her friends at an early age. Even when she was an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara, Stenzel said, she would sneak into film classes despite the fact that she was pursuing a degree in philosophy.
On the other end of the spectrum, Green’s turn toward filmmaking was born after she realized how much she strongly disliked law school.
Since she had always enjoyed writing and had acted in high school, film school seemed an appropriate fit.
Now in their second and third years of graduate film school, the four UCLA students are slowly breaking into the film industry with hands-on experience.
The Sprite Films Program extracted them from the classrooms of Melnitz Hall and gave them guidance from Hollywood professionals in their mentorship program with Tyrese Gibson, where they discussed their films and cinematic endeavors.
But education seems to have primacy. For Stenzel, her success as a filmmaker competing in a nationwide contest started with her time at the School of Theater, Film and Television.
“I think UCLA has made me a stronger storyteller. As a (director of photography), it has made me make stronger visual decisions,” Stenzel said. “And as a director, it has given me the opportunity to work with people who I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to work with otherwise.”