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The Big Picture After the Rod Serling Video Festival Aurelio Guzman's film career began with some clay, a camera and an active imagination. In 1996, Guzman, now 24, was one of the winners of the first Rod Serling Video Festival. Then a Binghamton High School student, he won the competition's Best Animation award for his claymation piece called The Magic of Nature. Today, Guzman is still making movies. The festival, now in its ninth year, was named after TV sci-fi guru and Binghamton High School graduate Rod Serling of Twilight Zone fame. For many contestants, entering the festival is a one-time creative outlet, a chance to dabble in the arts and try something new. For others, such as Guzman, it has served as a launching pad for careers in film and media. Joseph McIntosh was a Union-Endicott High School student when he won the 2001 award for Best Computer Animation. He's a junior at Rochester Institute of Technology, where he is a film major. McIntosh just won an award or one of his projects. Christopher Scales, a Chenango Forks High School graduate, won best claymation video in 2001. He is now in his second year studying claymation at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. One class started it all Guzman lives in Burbank, Calif., where he works as a full-time graphic designer for the Los Angeles Times. At the same time he is working on a live-action screenplay, which is tentatively scheduled to be filmed in Binghamton after its completion this summer. "I entered the competition in its first year with a short video I did in the first media arts class I ever took. It was a class at Binghamton High School meant to expose students to various media such as photography and video," Guzman said. "I had previously worked with both on my own, but I did learn a lot that year and had my first exposure to an animation camera. The video, which was done using stop-motion animation, was actually submitted by my teacher for me. I actually didn't know it had been submitted until it was accepted." After graduating from Binghamton High School, Guzman attended and graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. While there he created Koan Work, a 7 1/2-minute stop-motion animation about one person's quest for enlightenment. Koan Work won several awards at the university and has been screened at the International Student Film Festival in Tel Aviv, Israel. "Classes at the high school really solidified my love of art and helped move me down that path," Guzman explained. "The Rod Serling School of Fine Arts offered me a chance to take everything from music theory classes to photography and even the media arts class where I made the film." At the college level, Guzman was able to take what he learned in Binghamton and expand on it, exploring various aspects of film creation. "It was at Syracuse where I came to love the visual aspects of film and the amount of artistry that goes into setting up a story visually," he said. "Everything from the art direction to painting with light as a cinematographer really interests me, and I continue to try to push myself to create better and more complex film structures." After leaving Syracuse, Guzman was a visiting artist at Greenfield High School in Greenfield, Calif., where he helped create a film and video program. He has most recently worked as director of photography on a film in New York City. The project is still in post-production. More information about Guzman's work can be found at http://www.geocities.com/goose443. Growth of the festival The video festival, sponsored by the Binghamton City School District, which awarded its first prizes in 1996, began as a strictly Broome County competition. Today it draws entries from as far away as New York City and Buffalo, and down into Pennsylvania. Last year there were only about 50 entries, though the contest averages about 75 yearly and sometimes as many as 200. "The idea I had was to promote the creative use of video," said Lawrence Kassan, the festival's creator and coordinator. "Many people just use video to record and document family moments instead of [making] creative pieces." The festival attracts entries from kindergartners through seniors in high school. Any student can enter by producing a video up to five minutes in length. Prizes are awarded in various categories, including best of show, best of show for grade-school students, best directing, best computer animation and best special effects. "I remember I used to make videos with super 8," Kassan said. "Today there's such a wealth of technical information. But it's not necessarily the gadgetry; it's the written word. You have to have a good script; you have to have a good idea." One student credits the festival with helping him share his good ideas with others. Seth Bernstein is a two-time winner of the Rod Serling Video Festival. In 2001 he was awarded best of show for the piece Canvas, and in 2002 he received best social commentary for a commercial produced for the anti-tobacco movement Reality Check. Bernstein graduated from Ithaca High School and is now a sophomore at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. "The festival really gave me the confidence that an established group of people liked my work," he said. "Now I'm never shy of showing my work to people after that. It's always on my resume." Bernstein had always been involved with theater and production for live events before entering the festival when he was in high school. "I was always a very visual person," he explained. "With doing just lighting you're responsible for one thing only, though. With film you're responsible for it all from beginning to end. Film was just the next step up." Bernstein is not sure if he will go to film school after he finishes college. He is currently studying linguistic anthropology and the way language affects culture. While he makes up his mind about a career he stays active in filmmaking, recently completing one for the university's women's studies center. "Film is definitely something I want to do later," he said. "But if I just went to film school, how would I know what to do films about?" Guruianu is a free-lancer from Vestal. |