By: R Jay Molina
Sometime ago, an Old Dominion University senior formed a film appreciation club in his last semester. However, the club quickly withered away after his departure, and for a while, it looked as if it would take a miracle to form a new one. Luckily, senior Bryce Kephart took it upon himself to fix this problem by forming the ODU Film Society.
According to the club’s Facebook page, the mission of the film society is to “actively engage in discussion and learn about great films and to produce, shoot, and screen 100 percent student produced films.” Kephart stated that he “started talking to film professor Stephen Pullen, and he approached [me] and said that he felt that there should be some sort of film organization that’s run entirely by students.”
Over this past summer, Kephart wrote up the plans and constitution that would eventually be presented to the Office of Student Activities and Leadership, or OSAL. During the planning phase, Kephart was unsure about whether the club was just going to “be about making movies, or watching movies, or both.” He decided to make the club feature both aspects and then proceeded to receive all the signatures required to start up the film society.
Since the beginning of this current semester, Kephart started implementing his plans with the film enthusiasts at ODU. At the first meeting, he stated that “we went through the constitution and got feedback from the members, and we kind of molded the constitution to make sure that everyone was in agreement.” Kephart also said that “we [also] talked about what they, the members, wanted it to be, because I wanted it to be film as a collaborative art.”
He expressed his concern about not wanting to be the kind of leader who is pointing his finger down at subordinates and ordering them around. “I’m just there to kind of guide them and go through the appropriate channels with SGA, and so on,” he said.
Kephart also stated that some of the members are not even film majors. The film society is meant to bring in different groups of people, from various majors, to just have fun and interact with each other. He hopes that members from those different areas will be able to network in the future to make movies.
Kephart pointed out that theater majors, specifically actors, do not associate themselves enough with film majors and vice versa. If they did, then the talent surrounding the film majors would inspire them to come up with ideas to work on.
Dues for the club range at five dollars per semester to help fund future events. Meeting times have been irregular, however, as Kephart has been juggling schedules between all the members of the group to come to a general consensus on when to meet. Though he regularly updates the society’s Facebook page for information regarding meeting times.
One of the more important goals for Kephart is to make sure that the film society refrains from becoming “a commercialized movie” club.
“I want us to watch movies that are really deep, really artistic, not just commercially successful movies. Movies, for me, aren’t passive.”
He said, “a movie is exhausting, because I’m constantly putting myself in the movie, putting myself in the characters, and that’s what I want other people to do as well.”
Film enthusiasts are encouraged to join and help shape this society into being one of the top clubs at Old Dominion University. Email Bryce Kephart for more info at jkeph001@odu.edu.
I love this kid…and he’s not to harsh on the eyes ; )