Short films close out Block Festival on Saturday
The seventh annual Block Festival closed Saturday night after a weekend showcasing concerts, art exhibits and local films. The final day of the festival saw the premiere of local narrative shorts and five feature length films.
The block festival is an annual event that happens in the fall each year is put on by the community.
Tanner Benson, a local director, submitted his short film “The Scent of Her Perfume” and was in attendance for its premiere at the historic Lyric Theater. The film focuses on a woman who smells someone else’s perfume on the seat of her boyfriend’s car. The protagonist sees hallucinations of the woman that she suspects and the “other woman” explores her insecurities while trying to determine how to confront her boyfriend. Benson said that he started writing the film back in 2016 and it’s taken him longer than he would have liked to finish the film.
“We tried to film it back in 2016, but we ran into issues with the extreme cold of that winter and some scheduling problems with some actors. After we shot, it just didn’t feel right as I was editing. So, I put it on the back burner for a while. When I moved back up to Logan this last summer, I felt the urge to pull it out and try again. This time we were able to edit the script and the tone of the film to get the product we wanted,” Benson said.
For Benson, the inspiration came to him while reading a book about a man who would think about the scent of his fiancée’s perfume when they were apart.
“I thought it would be interesting to take that sweet notion and turn the scent into something
negative,” Benson said.
He explained that his love for film has always been important to him and creating this film felt like a natural extension of his talents.
“My mom was always taking my sister and me to the movies for as long as I can remember. A movie theater has always been a sort of second home to me. I came to love filmmaking in high school, but then I was pursuing it as an actor. My senior year, I started writing and I realized that I really wanted to be behind the camera, guiding the story in ways that I hadn’t seen done before. I realized that I had this drive to tell visual stories, and found film was the best way to do it.”
Aside from Benson’s film, seven other short films were shown on Saturday between the Lyric Theatre and the Utah Theatre including a film about the Golden Spike Monument, the hardships of social media (titled “Modern Shame”) and a film that redefines “a deal with the devil.”
“I’m just super grateful for the Block Festival that (it) brings some really great films to Logan and creates a space for local artists to display their work. It’s been a wonderful experience to attend so far, and I’m honored to be exhibiting too,” Benson said.
Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster from Los Angeles brought their Sundance Award Winning film “Science Fair” to the festival after premiering it at South by South West earlier this year. Variety magazine called the film, “supremely entertaining” and “an ode to the teenage science geeks on whom our future depends.”
Another filmmaker in attendance was Jessica Champneys from Spanish Fork, Utah. Champneys brought her fan film “Star Wars: Dresca” to the festival about an injured imperial pilot named Dresca who is rescued after the events of the original Star Wars trilogy.
“This was my first narrative short, and the first film I’d ever done on this scale and level of quality,” Champneys said. “There were many elements of the production that were firsts for me, and I underestimated the amount of time it would take. For example, we shot all the interior scenes in two days, when the shoot really should have been three days. We ended up filming for 36 hours in a 48-hour period. I don’t think l got more than eight hours of sleep that whole week.”
Champneys said her love for Star Wars came at six years old when her dad took her to see “The Phantom Menace” on opening night. It was her first time going to the movies and she says the experience was “magical.”
“This film checked all the boxes for me. I love Star Wars, but I also wanted to make a film that would help push my career forward and this was a huge learning opportunity,” Champneys said.
“Star Wars: Dresca” has over 407,000 views on Youtube and Champneys says the response to her film has been “fantastic.”
“It’s been great meeting fans and filmmakers alike who’ve enjoyed ‘Star Wars: Dresca’ and have been inspired by the film to create their own work,” Champneys said.
After her success, Champneys is looking forward to her next project right now.
“I’m looking at trying my hand at writing a feature length screenplay next. I have a few original concepts I’m playing with.”
—erickwood97@gmail.com
@GrahamWoodMedia