The Open Frame Film Fest, a student film fest held at Malone University each year, has facilitated more than one hundred short student films over the past twelve years. The one-day-only event includes films, written, directed, scored acted and produced by students. Our students have produced comedies, dramas, westerns, animated pieces, documentaries, music videos and art films; all are welcome at the festival.
The Open Frame also includes a number of training and development events throughout the year to help students develop their filmmaking and storytelling skills. We are excited to offer screenwriting and cinematography workshops this year and are pleased to announce a Master Film Maker series of classic film screenings open to students and the public as well. Students are encouraged to collaborate with each other, community members, professionals and faculty to develop their films.
Many of the students who make films for the Open Frame have gone on to make films after college, work in other media-related jobs, and work in Hollywood, CA. Others have gone on to more varied professions including teaching, sales, ministry, management, journalism, music and public relations. The Open Frame supplements the curriculum of the Communication Arts Department at Malone University.
This is the third year that the Communication Arts Department has offered a concentration in film. Building on the good work of our students for the last twelve years, our film program offers courses both in film studies (understanding film critically) and film production (utilizing digital cinema tools to tell visual stories). Malone University has retrofitted our new Student Media Center with a studio space, three dedicated editing suites, production offices and a Story Development Center.
The intent of the OPEN FRAME continues to be the hope that in the telling of the stories and the unwinding and application of the film maker's craft our students collaborate and direct their teams in ways that shape, reflect and transform their communities, the church and the world. Their contribution to film as art and narrative, their focus, their ability to think carefully and critically about the narratives they create, suggests that these students and this program share the heartbeat of the Communication Arts Department and Malone University mission statement.
