Classroom to Kenworthy

For the past two years, Bailey O’Bryant has served as a crew member on a variety of films showcased at the annual Kino Short Film Festival, helping wherever needed.

But this year, the University of Idaho broadcasting and digital media student will take on a new role — director. 

He’ll debut his almost six-minute film, “Triggered,” 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, along with eight other classmates and 15 local filmmakers from the Northwest.

“I’ve worked on films every year, so to finally be like this is my work now, is really exciting,” said O’Bryant, who received a $1,000 grant from the UI Office of Undergraduate Research for the project featuring an almost all-female cast. 

Created in 2001 by a former UI faculty member, the free festival is a chance for students in the School of Journalism and Mass Media’s Advanced Video Production course to present short films they’ve spent a semester writing, directing and editing. 

Each film, which is less than 10 minutes, varies in topic and genre, from horror to comedy.

Olivia Heersink | Argonaut
UI student Bailey O’Bryant works on his short film, “Triggered,” in the Radio and Television Center April 30.

O’Bryant, whose degree also emphasizes English with a focus on women’s and gender studies, said he came into the class with an idea of how his film would go, but ended up scrapping that first script early on. 

However, the core theme — sexual violence against women — remained, as well as his idea to “flip the script,” having female characters act in ways men typically do. 

“I’m really confident in what I’ve done, (and) I’m really excited to share it with people. … I’ve created something that I’m happy with and that means a lot to me,” he said. “Once I had the script down, the right motions, the right movements, the right scenes, it kind of all fell into place. And honestly, it went way better than I expected.” 

But O’Bryant wasn’t the only Advanced Video Production student who changed things early on in the process.

Ryan Morrison, who also acted in O’Bryant’s film, said he went through three ideas before coming up with a final plan. In the end, he melded them together, creating a dream sequence short filled with comedic heist scenes.

The almost six-minute film, “Drifter,” is more of an experience than an actual story, he said.

“It could be received really poorly, but I think I’m just happy with how much work went into it,” said Morrison, who is double majoring in public relations and broadcasting and digital media. 

However, the semester wasn’t without its challenges, especially when their initial professor, Denise Bennett, was put on administrative leave Jan. 24 by the university. 

“We were stuck in limbo for two to three weeks. … We needed guidance, we needed help — we’re just students,” O’Bryant said. “It threw me off, like hard core, there was a point where I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this film anymore.’”

But O’Bryant and Morrison said things changed once Kyle Howerton took the course over.

Howerton, who officially joined the JAMM faculty in 2016, has been familiar with the Kino Short Film Festival since 2007 when he was hired at UI as a video producer.

However, he wasn’t a stranger to the Advanced Video Production course either, having taught it as an adjunct professor in 2014. 

Allowing the students to show their films at festival makes the whole process more real for them, he said, and it is often their failures through the process that teach them the most.

Olivia Heersink | Argonaut
UI student Ryan Morrison works on his short film, “Drifter,” in the Idaho Commons April 29.

Howerton said he is proud of the group and looks forward to the community seeing their shorts, a sentiment both Morrison and O’Bryant share.

“It was still a rough semester, but we came together and we dealt with it and we really pushed out stories that I’m excited to see on the screen and excited for all my classmates to share their work,” O’Bryant said. “We were all faulting through the process, hitting roadblocks and figuring it out, but seeing everyone’s script at the beginning of the semester to building it up to now, it’s really, really cool. It makes me proud to be in the class and show my work next to them.”

O’Bryant said students don’t really have another class or opportunity to showcase their work in a professional setting. The festival provides undergraduates this chance and acts as a stepping stone to future pursuits such as other film events.

The whole experience has been incredibly eye-opening and caused him to look beyond UI, O’Bryant said.

“It solidified that fact that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and it solidified that I have the talent and I have the creative vision and drive to put forth stories that are more than just fun to watch, but they say something and they mean something,” he said. “I mean, that’s the biggest thing I want to do with my career is start conversations about things people don’t talk about.”

For O’Bryant and his peers, those audience conversations will begin Friday at the Kenworthy.

“After a hell of a semester, we did,” he said.

Olivia Heersink can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @heersinkolivia