Short film addresses fascination with fame

A team of UCF film school students and graduates began shooting a feature-length film titled 15 Minutes of Faye in Bradenton, Fla. this week. Once completed, the low-budget production, which is part of writer and director Joshua Ingle's master's thesis, is to be submitted to film festivals worldwide with hopes of gaining recognition from a film distribution company.

15 Minutes of Faye is strongly influenced by a specific genre of film dubbed "mumblecore," defined by its use of digital cameras, low production costs and character-driven storytelling. The dark romantic comedy thematically revolves around Western culture's idolization of fame.

"The script was born out of my frustration with my generation's sense of entitlement and some personal encounters with massively narcissistic people," said Ingle, a student in the Film Master of Fine Arts program. "I want to make a movie which turns the mirror back on these people, and comedy is the perfect disassociating agent. Laughter is a great way to provoke thought and positive change."

The film's producer, UCF alumnus Addison Bryan, said the crew is shooting scenes at private residences, Sarasota Bradenton International Airport and Regatta Pointe Marina at the start of production. They are focused mainly on scenes driven by dialogue until they begin filming in Sarasota's Cock & Bull Pub – a location that will involve an actual concert featuring local bands and hundreds of extras, according to Ingle.

Bryan said the film has an amazing cast that was hand-picked from a very talented pool of actors from Los Angeles, Orlando and Sarasota.

"Directing actors has always been my weakness as a director, so I wanted to immerse myself in a project that would force me to tackle that weakness head-on," Ingle said. "The performances are by far the most important element of the film."

The film's production crew also includes recent graduate Reid Nicewonder as the director of photography. Nicewonder has previously worked alongside Ingle and Bryan on projects such as the feature-length paranormal thriller titled Sanctuary.

"Real professionalism is collaboration in service of the film, and our crew has the same camaraderie as our cast," Ingle said. "Addison and I have learned over the years that, although talent and skill are important, it's also important to work with nice people, so we consciously looked for positive personalities for our team this time around."

Other past projects include Ingle's web series Generation Why and several winning short films with Campus Moviefest that helped generate some of the funds to finance the team's current production.

"I like doing something completely different with each new project," Ingle said. "Mumblecore is a fascinating genre to me because it's so authentic and immediate, without any of the fakeness that comes with most Hollywood films."

Ingle's production, although partly based on the Hollywood-industrial model that typically involves everything from a full film crew to craft services, is operating on a limited budget that is mandated by UCF's Film Master of Fine Arts program to amount to no more than $50,000.

When money is no longer a tool to rely on, filmmakers must focus on creative decisions and solutions to problems that would be otherwise ignored, explained Stephen Schlow, the department chair of UCF Film. The graduate program offers coursework in both film and business in order to provide students with the entrepreneurial skills needed to successfully market their productions.

"If you know what you're doing, you can create amazing work for super cheap," Ingle said. "UCF is pretty unique for realizing this, and the world has a lot to look forward to — great films will be made here."