SCV Film Festival Celebrates The Local and Independent

By Randy Simer

“With filmmaking, it’s not so much learning what to do, it’s learning what not to do,” says Ramon Hamilton, Executive Director of the Santa Clarita Valley Film Festival.   Now in its fourth season, the SCVFF gives independent and local student filmmakers the opportunity for their work to be seen.  With submissions from all over the world, it also affords Santa Clarita residents the chance to see the early work of directors who just might go on to be tomorrow’s auteurs.  The 2009 edition of the three-day festival will be held January 9-11, at The Repertory East Theater in Newhall.  Hamilton, a director himself, founded the festival with Jennifer Fischer, who serves as board president.  “We had both recently moved here,” Hamilton explains.  “She’s from Texas and I’m from Boston.   We noticed that there wasn’t a film festival geared towards independent filmmakers.  COC has a strong film program and Cal Arts is one of the greatest film and animation schools in the country.  Further research showed that the high schools also have film programs.  So we decided to start a film festival.  This year we’ve refocused the festival towards films that are for all audiences; quality family films that don’t have the money for billboards and commercials.” A five-member industry panel reviews the films that are submitted for consideration, and selects the winning entries.  After two years, Hamilton and Fischer also developed the Script 2 Screen program, which introduces school age children to the complete filmmaking process. Select films made through that program are also screened at the SCVFF.

In the face of rejection, Hamilton encourages young filmmakers to take an objective look at their work.  He relates, “One filmmaker will say, ‘There’s something wrong with all these festivals.  They don’t get it – they don’t understand me.’  But others, and this is what I chose to do, will say, ‘Ok, no one accepted this film.  Why?’  I met the editor of “Gods & Generals”, showed him my first film, and he was able to give a professional critique.  From that I decided I had gained a little bit more knowledge and made a short piece that got accepted into a few different festivals and did pretty well.  And then from that I made a short family piece, which actually did very well.  It was in twelve different children’s film festivals and won “Best Youth Film” in Toronto.   And now I’ve just completed my biggest venture so far, a feature called ‘The Hiding’.”  

With a film history as rich as Santa Clarita’s, and with many of its residents employed in that industry, the SCVFF is a welcome addition to our community that we can be proud of and support.
For more information, please visit www.scvfilmfestival.com.

Script 2 Screen programs reach students of a variety of ages. Its six- week after-school programs target grades 1-4 with other after-school, in school, and Saturday filmmaking classes targeting older youth, ages nine to 16. Additionally, Script 2 Screen’s intensive Summer Camps meet for three weeks, Monday through Friday, for six hours.  “Regardless of what the approach is, the children do get to experience filmmaking from script to screen”, says Executive Director Ramon Hamilton.  “They start off with nothing and come together to create concepts, characters, ideas.  They all shoot and direct.  They can act if they choose, but it’s not a prerequisite.  But a lot of them do.  We take the projects and throughout the year we have various screenings.  That has been an amazing success.  We started off in March 2007 with three kids.  Now we work with about 150 kids a week spread out through twelve schools.”  For more information call 661-251-0274.