Three semesters ago, Selas Douglas wasn’t just wrestling his opponents on the mat.
     The student athlete was also wrestling with himself, debating which career path to choose. After changing majors a few times, Douglas made a clear decision: film.
     “I have a vision of what the world, from my eyes, should be, in comparison to what it is now. That’s one of the reasons I want to make films,” said Douglas. “I have a lot of things to say that I believe will help a lot of people.”
     Douglas, whose influences include Directors Spike Lee and Tony Sky, is currently working on a film called “Greenlight” as part of a requirement for his advanced filmmaking class. The silent film is centered on an every day businessman, whose life outside his home is boring and humdrum. At home however, he comes alive. A signal light plays cupid and connects him with another person who is just like him.
     Though the film is part of a class project, Douglas says he and his crew are doing more than just fulfilling a class requirement.
“The goal of this is to eventually send the film out and win film festivals,” said Douglas. “We want bring popularity to our region in terms of film making and show that we can make good films here.”
     Filming took place locally in places such as Downtown Norfolk. Douglas even worked out an agreement with the Department of Transportation to have the intersection of Main Street and Atlantic Avenue shut down for filming.
     Location is one way Douglas aims to bring popularity to this area.
     “The location downtown was very important,” said Douglas. “We wanted to use something that would speak to specifically Norfolk. We don’t want to imitate New York or another city.”
     Douglas said more time and effort have been put forth in for this project than in past film assignments for class.

     “In some of the other classes, we were able to cut corners,” said Douglas. “Take shooting downtown for instance. In the other class, we might just say we’ll shoot on the street corner or we’ll do it around campus. This is really forcing us to not cut corners and to do everything by the book.”
     Working on the project and trying to balance classes have presented difficulties. Preproduction must be planned and executed precisely.
     When most [filmmakers] are doing preproduction, that’s all they are doing,” said Douglas. “All of us are doing it the way it is supposed to be done on top of all of our classes and a lot of us our upperclassmen. It’s really been a strain but its definitely helping us.”
     The work, however, is not in vain.
     “This is one of those classes that weeds out the people that really don’t want it,” said Douglas. “At the end of this process, you’re either going to say ‘This isn’t what I want to do, because I didn’t know it was going to be that hard’ or you’re going to say ‘I didn’t know it was going to be that hard, and I’m amazed that I still want to do this.’
     Douglas plans to continue to pursue film dreams after his graduation in December. He said he hopes to attend film school New York University or the University of Southern California.
     “Greenlight” will play at Old Dominion’s film festival next year.

editor@maceandcrown.com