Students Help Produce Short Film

Isabella, played by Hilary Agron, sheds a tear as she shares the contents of a letter sent from her long-lost mother.

“Accompaniment,” a locally produced short film, premiered on Dec. 1 and 13 on the Southwestern campus. David Pollock served as producer, director, script writer, and editor. A graphic design manager in Southwestern’s marketing department, Pollock assembled a team of students and began the production of the film in summer, 2013.

“I really wanted to show people that Southwestern students have talent and potential to do great things. I wanted to showcase their abilities and maybe even push them to try new things that maybe they didn’t think they could do,” says Pollock. “The film making experience was fun, interesting, and challenging. It was way more challenging than I thought it would be. I didn’t realize I wasn’t even ready for this experience.”

Pollock recalls that his favorite part of the project was working with his team. “There were many moments when I just wanted to give up. My team were the ones that really inspired me to keep going. Everyone would bring ideas and brain storm like crazy. There was a solution found to every problem we would run into. The students were really passionate about this work and really gave it their all even in discouraging moments.”

Makala Coleman, senior communication major, was one of the students who worked on this project. “A lot of people do not realize how much work stuff like this is. It was an eye-opening and awesome experience. David was a fantastic leader. He gives credit to other people, which is nice, but he is really the one who pulled this whole thing together,” she says.

The film is about a young girl who gets in contact with her long-lost mother. Pollock says the idea just came to him. The story line had been stirring in his mind but did not become realized until he took a class from Dr. Glen Robinson at Southwestern. Pollock says it was originally written as a short story and later converted in to a movie script.

Pollock claims that the feedback was better than he expected. Ben Ortega, an audience member at the premiere on Dec. 1, said, “I was really impressed. It surpassed my expectations and was a real tear-jerker. A lot of people really got into it, including myself.”

The film will be presented on YouTube this week.

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