Student film company readies latest offerings

By Lindsay Bjerregaard / BETTENDORF HIGH SCHOOL GROWL / September 20, 2002

Bluebox Limited, the student film company created by Scott Beck, '03, and Bryan Woods, '03, has been busy this summer filming and contributing to a number of projects.

Beck and Woods just finished working on"Iowa Boys," a movie co-produced by John Barker and Mac Smith, which is about a group of friends who grew up in Iowa. Beck first heard about the film when the reporter who wrote the article on Bluebox Limited for the Quad City Times did a story on Barker, and she told Beck how to contact him.

Beck sent him an e-mail to Barker, but when he didn't get a response, he decided to go to the auditions for "Iowa Boys" being held at the Bettendorf Public Library. Beck introduced himself and told Barker that he was interested in working on the film, and he and Woods both got jobs working on the film. Woods worked the clapboard (which tells which camera shot is being filmed for editing use later) and Beck logged time codes for the cameras and actually ran the cameras for about four days.

In total, Beck and Woods spent about 90 hours working on the film, and their longest day was from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., but the latest time they filmed was about 12:30 at night.

Scott Beck is currently filming a movie called "Remembering November." It's a story of life, individual happiness, and the decisions that we make, which can change the course of our existence. The main character, Jeff Collins (Tristan Layne Tapscott), is a college student who comes across a new corporation called Winston Technologies, which is offering internships. Once accepted, he slowly finds himself involved in a situation deeper than he could have ever imagined. Throughout the story, the world is revealed to Jeff to be a completely different place than what he has come to believe. The film also stars BHS alumni Lucas Anderson '98, Dan McGinn '02, and BHS student Ashley Brummitt '03.

Beck plans to have a premiere party for "Remembering November" at the Quad City Music Guild, but further details have yet to be announced. Aside from everything else he has been working on this summer, Bryan Woods is writing a script for another film, "Prism", which he plans to start shooting at the end of September. Woods and Beck also plan to start another project sometime soon, called "The Six Degrees of Life", which takes six aspects of life, including tragedy, happiness, love, and fame, and tells a short story about each. Beck would also like to make a psychological thriller involving downtown Chicago and the middle of nowhere in Iowa.

The process involved in making Bluebox Limited's films is fairly complex.

"First we brainstorm. We think of an inventive story, the end, the purpose, and effect on the audience. Then we take notes and collect ideas, write the screenplay, break down the script, and find locations, cast, crew, etc," said Beck. "After that we start scheduling filming dates and we start filming. Then we do editing, sound work, get a final copy, distribute it, and do publicity."

Making films can also be costly. According to beck, making films didn't cost anything at the start because they used what they had, but after buying new equipment, editing programs, computers, and props, the total cost for their films so far has been about $6,000.

All the hard work and money put into the films has started to pay off, however. Bluebox Limited has won numerous awards and recognitions, including Best Student Film from the Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival and Best Student Film from the Iowa Motion Picture Association. Bluebox Limited was also won Rookie of the Year Award and was nominated for Best Editing, Best Original Music, and Best Short Film from the Rewind International Film Festival.

"Bother Bryan and Scott think in the language of film. They always saw beyond what was required in T.V. Tech, and they put a lot of work into it. Somebody that eats, sleeps, and dreams filmmaking will make it in the business, and they do," said Mrs. Hegeman, the T.V. Tech teacher at BHS.

For more information about Bluebox Limited and its projects, visit http://www.blueboxlimited.com.