by Cory Woodroof | Oct 6, 2014 | News Slider
To co-curator Ted Parks, Lipscomb’s documentary screening series HumanDocs means far more than an earned chapel credit. Now, students who attend an installment of the series, typically nestled in a time-friendly slot on a Wednesday night, do earn a credit, but like most chapel opportunities, the impact goes far beyond the met requirement. The HumanDocs film screening series aims to teach its attendees about issues facing our world through the art of the documentary, which fits right in with the genesis of the documentary form. “My sense is that documentary has always been a form that has had an alternative distribution to commercial film,” Parks said, “and it’s always, from what I know about it, been used to raise consciousness about issues.” Parks says that at the beginning of the documentary, filmmakers were more able to pursue the issues and topics that they were passionate about because of the leniency of not working within the confines of commercial requirements. “Documentary filmmakers are not in it to make a buck,” Parks said. “They’re in it because they want to tell a story that they think will impact the world, and I really like that part of documentary film in contrast with commercial filmmaking.” Parks, an associate professor, said that HumanDocs was born out of his Hispanic Cinema class. He would have students volunteer at the Nashville Film Festival as part of the course, which got Parks wondering if Lipscomb could forge a more formal bond with the festival. “I wanted to try to develop a closer relationship between Lipscomb and the Nashville Film Festival, so talking to my colleague and...
by Aaron Schmelzer | Apr 10, 2014 | News Slider
The credits will roll in Shamblin Theatre on Apr. 11-13 at 7:30 p.m. each night for the first ever Five-Minute Film Festival. The event is presented by the Film and Creative Media Graduate Program, and SGA is sponsoring the event, so students’ tickets are free. Faculty tickets are $10 and $15 for individuals. Mike Fernandez, chair of the department of theatre, explained why the film festival was created. “We just launched the Film and Creative Media Graduate Program, and it’s essentially a film school,” Fernandez said. “We felt like if we were going to have a film school that’s worth anything, we need to have a film festival.” The winner of the film festival will be decided by seven judges, who are from the “professional scene,” according to Fernandez. The winning film will receive a $500 grand prize and a spot in the Nashville Film Festival. Second place will win $250. The victor will be announced on the last day, Apr. 13. There were 14 submissions, 11 fiction and three documentaries, for the film festival. Fernandez said that all of them will show. “We’ve gotten some really creative pieces, and we’ve decided, at the film festival, we’re going to show all fourteen,” Fernandez said. The screen time for each night will last for one hour, and the showings are split into two acts. The first act consists of seven films, and the second act will show the remaining seven. Students, and anyone interested are encouraged to come. There will also be concessions served at the showings. “For [our] first year I think we’re off to a really good start,”...
