The character John Doe just can’t get a break — badly burned, his bandaged face is unidentifiable. And when five strangers show up in intensive care to claim him, four try to kill him.
“We start off with confusion and venture into absurdity,” said Matt Parker, second assistant director of the dark comedy Unconscious, which was shot in Central Florida. “Wherever you think it [the movie] is going, it’s not going.”
Parker is a recent graduate of Valencia Community College’s film production technology program. He received class credit for his work on Unconscious, the school’s first feature-length film to be shot in high-definition video.
The picture is screening this weekend at the school’s 11th Annual Film Celebration — a debut of several projects produced by Valencia students working alongside film-industry professionals, said Ralph Clemente, director of the program.
Student filmmakers dream of duplicating the phenomenal success of The Blair Witch Project, a 1999 low-budget film shot by University of Central Florida students with hand-held video cameras that grossed $150 million.
Clemente said his students are “deer-in-the-headlights kind of people” whose youth, energy and inexperience are a perfect fit for low-budget projects, where compensation often is not a paycheck, but the opportunity to network and establish relationships with mentors who have years of experience.
The Valencia program is different because at four-year universities, movies are produced entirely by students and not with the help of professionals, he said.
“Steven Spielberg called us one of the best programs in the world,” Clemente said. “I’m a big believer that you can only talk about [film] so much. We’re really hands-on focused.”
Tax incentives provided by the state should be expanded, Clemente and Parker say, to lure more film projects.
The incentive program gives filmmakers a 15 percent reimbursement if their production costs in Florida total at least $850,000, said Scott Openshaw, a spokesman for the governor’s office of tourism, trade and economic development. Incentive funding went from zero in 2003, to $2.4 million in 2004, to $10 million in 2005, he said.
Unconscious was filmed last spring, and students worked full-time for about four weeks. That’s not a lot of time to make a feature. But because the $300,000 film was shot on high-definition video instead of film, there were shorter set-up times, said Ross Davis, 21, the first assistant cameraman of Unconscious and a Valencia graduate.
“Film is very organic. It feels good on the eyes,” Davis said. “HD is a sharp, sharp image. From 25 feet away, you can see every blade of grass or grain of sand. Several actors and actresses won’t work on HD because it brings every little feature out.”
The other movies showing this weekend were shot on 25 mm or 35 mm film.
On Friday night, The Way Back Home, starring Julie Harris and Ruby Dee and produced by Florida Film Commissioner Paul Sirmons, premiered at the event.
