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YouTheatre films ready for action

Ian Kyle, 13, and his sister Fabienne, 11, worked on two films that will screen Friday during the Egyptian Theatre’s YouTheatre Film Series. The event will feature films that were created during YouTheatre film camps over the past four years.
Photo by Chris Kyle

YouTheatre Film Festival will start at 7 p.m. on Friday, June 15, at the Egyptian Theatre, 328 Main St. Tickets range from $15 to $50. For information, visit http://www.parkcityshows.com or call 435-649-9371.

It’s all quiet at the Egyptian Theatre, but on Friday, it will come alive with lights, cameras and action with the YouTheatre Film Festival.

The event, which is scheduled to start at 7 p.m., is a fundraiser for the new YouTheatre space, located across the street from the Egyptian Theatre under the Parkite, and it will feature an array of short films that were created during the past your years of YouTheatre film camp, said Nicholas Dunn, one of the camp’s teachers and a partner at Overcranked Pictures, a local company that works on film industry projects. Nine films running between 10 and 15 minutes long comprise the screenings for the evening.

“The youngest film camp participants are 8 and 9 years old, and the oldest are 17 and 18,” Dunn said.



The camps are split into pre-teen and teenagers, and the films will be from both groups, he said.

“The biggest reward, without a doubt, is seeing that sense of awe on the film camp students’ faces when they see the finished project…”Nicholas Dunn,YouTheatre Film Camp teacher

Ian Kyle and his sister, Fabienne, worked on a couple of the films that will be screened Friday, “Outbreak” and “History of Films.”



The siblings did everything from holding the boom microphones to running the camera to acting.

Ian, 13, who will attend Treasure Mountain Junior High School in the fall, said he and his sister got into the YouTheatre Film Camp through word of mouth after trying the YouTheatre musical theater camps.

“We loved it and kept going back,” he said.

Fabienne, 11, who is now an Ecker Hill Middle School student, enjoyed working behind the scenes.

“I liked handling the equipment, and my favorite part was being under the boom (microphone) and listening to everyone,” she said.

Fabienne also enjoyed the challenge of lighting the films, which included using a white reflective screen called a bounce.

“In this one scene we were down in a tunnel and there wasn’t enough light, and we had to use a bounce,” she said.

Crews placed bounces at each end of the tunnel to get the proper lighting.

“It worked and I thought that was pretty cool,” Fabienne said.

The biggest challenge for Fabienne wasn’t lifting the heavy equipment or running the camera. It was staying quiet during a shoot.

“It’s hard not to make any noise,” she said with a smile.

The consequences of breaking silence led to longer shoots, Ian said.

“If you make any noise, you will have to reshoot the scene, and that means more time waiting for what you need to do next,” he said.

Dunn, who is currently working on a TV series called “Dwight in Shining Armor,” said the YouTheatre Film Camps, which run for five days at a time, are packed with information.

“The kids also learn different aspects of filmmaking,” he said. “We break our week up into pre-production, production and post-production.”

All the while, Dunn and Overcrank Films cofounder Connor Rickman teach the kids the differences of telling a story on camera as opposed to telling a story on stage.

“Film is more visual, and we really focus on story arcs,” Dunn said.

The camps are hands-on, and the students not only work with the camera, audio equipment and lighting, but also work on slating, script supervising and editing.

Dunn is looking forward to the film festival because of the students’ reactions.

“The biggest reward, without a doubt, is seeing that sense of awe on the film camp students’ faces when they see the finished project,” he said. “Since filmmaking is often a fractured process, the shooting schedule sometimes doesn’t add up in their minds, and we’ll get asked why we are filming out of sequence. But then we’ll see that light bulb go off in their heads when they see the finished film.”

The Kyles said that they’re sometimes surprised by what they see in themselves while watching the films.

“When I see myself on the screen I always think, ‘Wait, I look like that?’” Fabienne said.

Ian, on the other hand, doesn’t mind how he looks. He just doesn’t like how he sounds.

“I’ll see a scene and think I look OK, but after a few seconds, I can’t wait for it to end,” he said.

Participating in the YouTheatre Film Camps and making films for the YouTheatre Film Festival has given the Kyles an appreciation for filmmaking.

“It gave us a peek behind the scenes and showed us how long it takes to make a 10-minute short film,” Fabienne said.

Dunn, Rickman and their business partners, Chris Bradshaw and Matt Whittaker, are planning to attend the YouTheatre Film Festival along with the Kyles.

“Connor (Rickman) will emcee the festival,” Dunn said. “He’s got a gift of gab and a great stage presence.”

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