Professor Serves Up an Award-Winning Short Film
Article by: Linda Piepenbrink
Moody Communications professor Bob Gustafson ’82 collaborated with his son, Ben, and several Moody volunteers on a short film that was shown in a dozen film festivals as far away as London. At the recent Elgin (Illinois) Short Film Festival, Seared: The Journey of a Chef won third place and an audience choice award. The film has also won other awards at festivals in Kentucky and Vermont.
- Updated list of Awards May 2019:
Best Documentary — Highbridge Film Festival (2017)
Audience Choice — Highbridge Film Festival (2017)
Best us of Music in Film — Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival (2017)
Audience Choice — Elgin Short Film Fest (2017)
2nd Place — Elgin Short Film Fest (2017)
1st Place — Justice For All Award — (In)Justice Film Festival (2018)
Best Illinois Short — Beloit Film Fest (2019)
Best Short Documentary — National Black Film Festival (2019)
What particularly thrills Gustafson is not the awards. It’s offering an alternative to the short films that may be well-written and well-produced but lack hope. “Most people walked out saying this is a strong message about the values of family and the sanctity of life,” he says.
The film tells the story of a man whose life was marked by injustice and crime until a pivotal event led to a passion for culinary arts and his family.
In making the short film, Gustafson interviewed the subject and edited the story, while his son did the cinematography. The father and son told a story of family values that wouldn’t alienate their intended audience, the arts community. “If we could sprinkle in that here’s a life that once was lost and now was found, and beneath the waterline there was a praying mother, that to me was a win,” he says.
Moody volunteers helped produce the film during spring break last year, meeting the deadline for the first film festival. “It was fun for me as a professor to actually invite students into the project,” Gustafson says. Two Communications students, Taylor Phipps and now alumnus Jonathan Metzger ’17, helped with recording audio and sound effects in the Moody Media Lab, while a Moody employee provided voice talent.
“We shot, edited, and delivered within two weeks,” says Gustafson, who took a handful of students with him to the Elgin Short Film Festival.
“To be used of the Lord and then watch the audience respond, that’s awesome,” he says. “And to be able to model that to my students is powerful; that to me is what being a teacher is all about.”
Gustafson now uses the film as a case study in one of his Communications courses. Students learn the steps to produce a short film, including editing an eight-minute version down to five minutes.
“It’s legacy time, and I really want to equip and mobilize our Communications students to reach their generation,” he says.
Gustafson regularly reconfigures his courses to stay up to date with emerging technology and the communications industry. But what has not changed is the essence of telling a good story, “how to find a compelling character with a transformational story that moves an audience to action,” he says. “Students have grown up with cameras but not necessarily knowing how to craft a compelling story. That’s why I’m in the game.”
“If I can show them how they can use their abilities to be an influence on their audience, I’m excited about that.”
For behind the scenes photos use the following link: Seared Behind the Scenes.
