Screen gems

— The University of Central Arkansas’ Digital Filmmaking program, which earlier this year released its first feature film, Table at Luigi’s, is now creating the first 3-D short made in Arkansas. Europa will be directed by associate professor Bruce Hutchinson. Assistant professor Scott Meador will supervise the 3-D process and visual effects. Justin Nickels and Mallory O’Neal are responsible for the script aboutan astronaut’s trip to one of Jupiter’s moons.

“Our first goal is to tell a compelling story, but we also want to showcase the possibilities of new technologies like 3-D for independent filmmakers,” Hutchinson said. Europa lends itself to the 3-D format - often called stereo - because it is “short, has virtual scenery ... and being a sci-fi [story], it is appropriate to be in stereo compared to a dramaor comedy,” Meador said.

Hutchinson says the film will be shot Aug. 6-13 and will star Warren McCullough, Kristy Barrington, Mark Cluvane and 12-year-old Cole Ewing. McCullough, who has appeared in a number of Hollywood films, also starred in Silent Night, which was filmed in Batesville and screened at the 2010 Little Rock Film Festival.

Hutchinson is optimistic about the project but says it is not without its challenges. “From an artistic point of view, the challenge has been to develop shots that both fit the story and enhance the 3-D look. Sometimes we end up choosing one over the other, but in the end we hope to create a good balance. This is made more complicated by the fact that most of the movie is being shot in front of a green screen. ... Another challenge is that our hardware must be powerful enough to work with two sets of images all the time.”

Chris Churchill, lecturer and chief engineer of UCA’s educational access television station, Channel 6, will shoot the film. Students are expected to work as crew on the shoot as they did for Luigi’s, and Meador says students in his visual effects courses will participate in the 3-D post-production work once they feel confident with the process.

The digital filmmaking program received a grant to buy software designed for editing and processing stereo footage, Meador said. The UCA Department of Mass Communication and Theatre provided the cameras. Hutchinson expects Europa to have a finished length of 12-15 minutes.

Levi Agee is a programmer for the Little Rock Film Festival and the founder and host of Cameras on the Radio. E-mail him at:

[email protected]

MovieStyle, Pages 31 on 07/30/2010

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