Student Filmmakers Hope To Drive Away With Awards

It's no mystery how Sarah Wilson and Jesse Newman found each other.

"There are not many filmmakers on the USF campus," Sarah says.

Since the University of South Florida students met late last year, they have collaborated on an award-winning short film and supported and critiqued each other's work.

Later this week, online voting will determine if one or both are winners of $5,000 scholarships and trips to the 2009 Chicago Auto Show.

Sarah and Jesse are among 10 finalists culled from 620 entries in a national contest sponsored by a tire company to produce a short video on auto safety. Sarah was a winner last year.

The top entries also become public service ads. Based on the finalists, they may be tough to distinguish from those of highly paid professionals.

"They're getting better," Sarah said of this year's lot. There are reasons: 20-somethings are on overdrive when it comes to technology and connecting with each other.

Sarah, 20, and Jesse, 21, are great examples. Before they met, these artists of a new age produced their own films. On their own, they had equipped their own computers for editing and bought increasingly more sophisticated digital video cameras.

The students had seen each other's work at local film festivals. Then, through Sarah's sister, also a USF student, the two met at a tea house near USF to talk about their work.

Except for their shared passion for making films, they couldn't be more different.

'I'm right and he's left," Sarah says of their politics. She lives in Seffner with her family and graduated from Armwood High. He graduated from Lecanto High School in Citrus County and lives in an apartment near USF's campus. As to religion, she describes herself as "a Christian conservative." He notes, "I'm agnostic."

With no film major at USF, she chose communications and theatre; he, social science with an independent study in film.

Somehow, it works. Maybe in part, Sarah says, because, 'he has all the crazy ideas' and "I sit down and organize."

Jesse sees the strength of opposing viewpoints: "The products we come out with are just going to reach that many more people."

They are not a couple, but agree that they both have experience dealing with difficult relationships and intolerance.

That commonality was the theme of the five-minute film they co-produced and directed called "Focus" that won both USF and state Campus MovieFest 2008 awards before placing in the top 18 nationally.

"It's OK to walk away from a bad series of events - to stand up for yourself," is how Sarah describes the film's message that won them and their team of eight others more than $20,000 in software, computers and iPods.

Jesse elaborates: With certain relationships, "You have to say, 'I love you, but I can't really see you anymore."

The project, as all of theirs, was created and lives through the social networking of technology.

The students often find extras for their films through Facebook, where both have pages that link to their work. Some of their work is also on You Tube, and Jesse has his own Web site.

This year Sarah encouraged Jesse to create his own entry for the safety video contest sponsored by Bridgestone Firestone North America Tire LLC that she won last year along with two other contestants. She used her $5,000 scholarship for a new video camera and is saving the rest. She also has her own entry again this year. She also made a film for the contest.

Sarah has two more years at USF, then plans to head to graduate school to study film. Jesse plans to move to New York when he graduates a year from now.

A May internship at the Cannes Film Festival in France, meeting professionals like Tim Robbins and Brad Pitt encouraged Jesse that he can find work in New York. His part-time job at the Apple computer store at International Mall and contest winnings helped pay for the rest, including a new $6,000 digital video camera.

In the meantime, the two will teach a narrative film making class at USF when fall classes begin and will keep striving to make better and better films.

"It's a growth process," says Sarah. "You start off doing what you love. You find more and more ways you can communicate with people. You hope more people get insight out of it."

To view Sarah and Jesse's videos along with the only eight finalists and vote for a winner in the Bridgestone contest, go to www.safetyscholars.com.

Sarah's winning entry from last year is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5c4qddDH0A.

Some of Sarah's work may be found at www.youtube.com/user/purpleg.

Jesse's work is available at www.jessenewmanfilms.com.