USF Student Filmmakers Vying For National Video Win

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

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

Wilson and Newman 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. Wilson 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," Wilson said of this year's lot. There are reasons: Twenty-somethings are on overdrive when it comes to technology and connecting with each other.

Wislon, 20, and Newman 21, are great examples. Before they met, these artists of a new age produced their own films. On their own, they had equipped their 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 Wilson'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," Wilson 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 with roommates 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, Wilson says, because, "he has all the crazy ideas" and "I sit down and organize."

Newman 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 Wilson describes the film's message that won them and their team of eight others more than $20,000 in software, computers and iPods.

Newman 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 YouTube, and Newman has a Web site.

This year, Wilson encouraged Newman to create his own entry for the safety video contest sponsored by Bridgestone Firestone North America Tire 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.

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

A May internship at the Cannes Film Festival in France, where he met professionals like Tim Robbins and Brad Pitt, encouraged Newman that he can find work in New York. Half of his $4,000 cost for the trip was picked up by two colleges at USF. 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 filmmaking class at USF when fall classes begin and will keep striving to make better and better films.

"It's a growth process," says Wilson. "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 Wilson and Newman's videos, along with those of the other eight finalists, and vote for a winner in the Bridgestone contest, go to www.safetyscholars.com.

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

Wilson's work may be found at www.youtube.com/user/purpleg.

Newman's work is at www.jessenewmanfilms.com.