05.14.2014 | Harrison Cummins
Our 2014 Events Coordinator Harrison Cummins has been with the Festival for a year now, beginning as an intern for the AFF Executive Department and working his way up to the AFF Events Coordinator. However, interning for our Executive Department was not Harrison’s first time being involved with the Festival. We discovered that Harrison had participated in AFF’s Summer Film Camp when we was an aspiring young filmmaker in elementary school. We asked him to write about his experience and how it’s shaped his love for film:
At the early age of 8, I developed a taste for filmmaking. After 2nd grade, I signed up for an all-day Claymation class as part of the Austin Film Festival’s Summer Film Camp. Chicken Run was the newest animation film at the time and James and the Giant Peach was already an all-time favorite. Young and imaginable, I had feature length ideas before class even started and I was eager to create the next Wallace & Gromit. All of my classmates were equally excited about making a film together, I fondly remember working with a few interesting characters. Throughout the camp, I learned a valuable lesson in production in that it is hard to rush your creation. The full production of my idea didn’t fit the weeklong timeframe and I was pushed to creatively redefine my vision. I remember all of my classmates were in awe to learn how much time and effort went into a Claymation film. But inch by inch, my team and I were able to collaborate and develop a screenplay with a protagonist. Our film was named “Mr. Big Head”, written, directed, and edited equally amongst my team. At the end of the camp, I was proud of our project and of my team for the job well done. The Summer Film Camp was not only a tool to exercise my young talent but also feed my curiosity in the process.
If you or someone you know is interested in enrolling a budding young filmmaker in our Summer Film Camp, click here.
14camp comm 30sec from AFF on Vimeo.