by Philip Johnston
The marquee of the historic Tivoli Theater in Chattanooga shone brightly Saturday evening with the announcement of The Broad Street Film Festival awards ceremony. Over 400 students from Bryan College and Covenant College converged upon the Tivoli for an evening of awards, music and celebration.
The ceremony was organized by the Medium of Film Class taught by Mr. Michael Palmer and Mr. Chris Clark and was one of the most impressive student-planned events in recent memory. Not only did it mark one of the first meetings of Covenant and Bryan that didn’t involve war paint and screaming, but it was also a riveting celebration of the creative talent evident in both schools.
Artistic abilities were out in full form on Saturday, but not just in the area of film. Each school had impressive music performances – including a cover of MIA’s “Paper Planes” by The Little Foxes and some original tunes from the Covenant band Economy of Sound – and around 40 dancers from Bryan organized a “Dancing Through the Decades” routine with songs ranging from “Rockin’ Robin” to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Eleven awards – called “Wheelens” in honor of the city of Chattanooga – were handed out on Saturday. Ten of them were judged by a panel of industry professionals from the Chattanooga area and a People’s Choice Award was chosen by the audience at last Thursday’s film showings at the Carmike Bijou in downtown Chattanooga. The 10 judged awards split down the middle with five going to Bryan and five going to Covenant. Covenant also took home the People’s Choice Award for their shot-for-shot remake of Orson Welles’ unaired TV pilot The Fountain of Youth.
The first statuette given to a Bryan film was the Wheelen for Best Original Score awarded to the film You Dropped Your Quarter. The score, composed by Daniel Lawson of West Chester University, was commissioned by the producers of the film and performed by Billy Findley, Colton Davie and myself.
After Covenant swept some awards in technical categories, Bryan made a comeback with awards for Best Actress and Best Actor. Hilary Tullberg took home a Wheelen for her performance in Erica Heffelmire’s Danish Day and Rob Yates was awarded for his performance in A Pistol in Hand is Worth Two in the Glove Box. Pistol’s director, Bryce McGuire, also took home the Wheelen for Best Director.
The evening’s biggest honor for Bryan filmmakers was the award for Best Narrative Short Film given to You Dropped Your Quarter, a silent short film directed by Bryce McGuire and produced by Colton Davie, Erica Heffelmire, and myself. The audience roared when the award was announced and all attending cast and crew rushed to the stage to receive the honor.
Colton Davie gave the acceptance speech for the film.
“It was nice to win the award,” says Davie, “but even better was the audience’s response to the movie at the screenings and at the awards.”
Students from Covenant planned the after-party hosted at Loose Cannon Studios in Chattanooga. There was plenty of loud music and food, but the best part was a separate room for the filmmakers from both schools to meet and talk about their filmmaking experiences and ideas.
Here’s hoping that The Broad Street Film Festival becomes a tradition for Bryan and Covenant because the creative possibilities from the two schools coming together are endless. In the words of Colton Davie and the crew of Your Dropped Your Quarter, “Team work makes dreams work!”
Tags: A Pistol in Hand is Worth Two in the Glove Box, Broadstreet Film Festival, Carmike Bijou, Clark, Covenant, Danish Day, Davie, Economy of Sound, findley, Heffelmire, Johnston, Lawson, Little Foxes, McGuire, Palmer, The Fountain of Youth, Tivoli, Tullberg, Wheland, Yates, You Dropped Your Quarter
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