SBIFF's 10-10-10 competition moves toward finish line

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

For the next 10 days, 10 young, local filmmakers will assemble a cast, throw together a crew and shoot a film.
It won’t be easy, but Santa Barbara International Film Festival Executive Director Roger Durling said it’s the experience that counts.


The experience Durling has in mind is brought to 10 filmmakers and 10 screenplay writers by the film festival’s 10-10-10 Filmmaking and Screenwriting Competition, which will conclude on the final day of the festival with a screening of the 10 short films at 1 p.m. on Feb. 3 at the Marjorie Luke Theatre.
As the deadline nears, Durling jokingly encouraged the filmmakers to work with and listen to the screenwriters to hopefully avoid a strike.
“Please, please, please be kind to your writer,” he said. “Don’t create a strike here.”
Further compounding the stress and the stiff deadline is the not so minor detail of a screenplay, which the filmmakers -- five from local high schools and five from local colleges -- saw for the first time on Monday when film festival representatives randomly doled out the scripts during an event at the Montecito Country Club.
Of all the success Durling has had during his reign as the festival’s director, he said the 10-10-10 event, which is in its fifth year, is one of his favorites.
“Wait till you see the final product,” he said. “It’s pretty inspiring.”
The 10-10-10 competition begins months before the festival when students submit samples of their work to school officials, who whittle the submissions down and present the finalists to festival officials, who then settle on 10 individuals in each category.
When the 10 screenwriters were selected, Durling said each was given the same general theme to use as the bedrock of their screenplays.
That theme is this: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” a quote from the philosopher George Santayana.
With this in mind, the writers went to work and undoubtedly produced widely varying pieces that will likely grow even more distant when interpreted through the lens of a filmmaker.
Zoe Braverman, an English and Film Studies major at UC Santa Barbara, said her screenplay is generational and focuses on a single family.
Cattie Yost, a senior at Dos Pueblos High School, said her screenplay chronicles the path of a man who tries to make a mistake that has never been made before.
Yost, who has experience writing stage plays, said it was fun and difficult to write a piece for the screen.
“At first it was hard for me to figure that out,” Yost said. “It was so much more visually focused than dialogue driven.”
Freddy Meyer, a Santa Barbara High School student, will make Yost's screenplay into a film.
Tony Johnson, a senior at Santa Barbara High School, is a four-year veteran of the 10-10-10 filmmaking competition and is hoping to win this year.
As Johnson was flipping through the screenplay he drew on Tuesday, he said the days ahead are mostly about problem solving.
“You don’t have any idea what to expect until you see the script,” he said. “It’s all about how you get through and come up with a final product at the end of 10 days.”
Just as the screenwriters were afforded the opportunity to sit down with a mentor and talk about the writing process, the filmmakers went out in the field and shot footage with professional directors, Durling said.
Now it’s time to put those skills to work. Alone.
While 10-10-10 is a competition on the surface – the two top films will be shown during the festival’s closing ceremonies on Feb. 3 at the Arlington Theatre – Durling said the process of making a film or writing a screenplay and working with the mentors is what makes 10-10-10 special.
“They’re already all winners,” Durling said. “It’s more about the process, the access to all this talent.
“It’s a valuable opportunity they have.”