TSTV Takes Over Austin Film Festival!

I didn't make a blog post last week, so I'm making this extra one to get caught up!  My last post was about the film I edited screening at the Austin Film Festival.  I spent so much time editing that film that I even took my work on the air with me at TSTV.  Don't believe me?  Check it out in the very short lived Editing and Producing Hour Live.  We took a page out of VGHL's title during 24seven and put "Hour Live" at the end of everything.

I used a lot of skills I learned at Texas Student Television to edit that film, and I know a lot of other TSTV alums have used their skills and experiences to create their own films.  Two of the films at Austin Film Festival this year are by TSTV alums, so you should definitely check them out!  The fact that 3 of the films at the festival were either created by or had significant contributions from TSTV is a pretty big deal.  Definitely tells me I made the right choice in where I spent my time during college.  While this year I may just have a short film I edited in the festival, sometime in the future I may have a feature film in the mix like these guys do.

So what are these other movies, and who are they by?  The first is the feature It's A Disaster, by Todd Berger.  Todd created the show Campus Loop at TSTV, which is still to this day one of the funniest shows I've seen on TSTV, if not THE funniest.  My friends and I quote it regularly.  Loop it, loop it!  I'm also a little jealous that Todd's visiting his roots at TSTV and I'm not there; I've got tons of questions I'd want to ask him about his show:

Todd's film is about what happens when a group of friends shuts themselves in their house during the apocalypse.  It's sure to be hilarious!  The film screens at 9:45 pm Saturday in the Paramount Theatre.

The second film is Pictures of Superheroes, by Don Swaynos.  Kelly Williams and Tate English produced it, with former station manager Caroline Connor as the executive producer.  Other alums like Frank Serpas III and Dano Johnson appeared in the film too, I believe.  That's a lot of alumni!  Those alums worked on and produced shows like Sneak Peek, Campus Loop, and Puppet Show back in the day.  Puppet Show is especially worth bringing up since it was way ahead of its time in terms of production value!  It was made in 2002 and it looks better then some shows still in production today!  I grabbed an interview with Don, Dano, and Tate in my last TSTV Monthly Newsletter, and they talked about Pictures of Superheroes and Jollyville Pictures.

The film is a comedy about a maid posing as her client's wife to close business deals in a house that has a comic book artist living in it secretly!  Pictures of Superheroes makes its premiere at 3:45 pm Saturday in the Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz and re-screens on October 25 at 7:00 pm in The Bob Bullock Museum's Texas Spirit Theater.

Dano Johnson, a genius of an animator, also has some films playing.  Flatland and Flatland 2: Sphereland play Sunday at 1:30 pm at the Austin Convention Center.  Be sure to check that animated marathon out.  The movie is about a young mathematician who must race against time to solve geometrical puzzles and save a doomed 'space' mission, but in the process she makes a discovery that will change the shape of her universe.

So go check out those films by other amazing TSTV alums!  I'm super stoked to see what other alumni will do in the years to come, and I'm glad I can say I came from the same place as these awesome filmmakers.