The mission of the Fort Omaha Film Conference is to recognize achievements in filmmaking and video production by high school students, college students and amateurs. The conference accepts entries in several categories that are judged by industry professionals. Student and amateur filmmakers gather in an informal setting to attend panels, workshops, share ideas and techniques.
http://www.mccneb.edu/filmconference/

Fort Omaha Film Conference
Filmmakers

Joe Addison
Short Documentary
Joe Addison was born in 1986 and graduated from Millard West High school in 2004. He is currently enrolled in the Commercial Audio/Video Program at Metropolitan Community College.

Bastard & Hoodlum Productions (Branden Hill, Andrew Torkelson, Kenny Cheairs)
Music Video
Bastard & Hoodlum Productions was formed in late 2000 strictly by chance. A long-time friend of Branden Hill, Andrew Torkelson, Kenny Cheairs needed to create a short film to submit to New York University for admission. Being friends since middle school, he naturally asked the group for help. Hill, Torkelson and Cheairs jumped at the opportunity to be on film, and the rest is history. They enjoyed making the film so much, they decided to start doing a sketch-comedy show. The Omaha Show ran on public access in Omaha and New York City for a couple years, but with breaks from school being the only time to film, Hill, Torkelson and Cheairs decided it was time to throw in the towel. The group was constantly outdoing themselves and looking for a new avenue to explore in filmmaking. Then a local band composed of yet more friends asked for a video for their upcoming DVD. After filming Daydream, Hill, Torkelson and Cheairs knew what their calling was. Currently, they are a group of three middle school friends that have a lot of fun making fun videos and who would like to share their work with as many people as possible.

Michael Cavanaugh
Music Video
Michael Cavanaugh was born in Omaha, Nebraska; he lived in Nebraska until the age of 18. At the age of 18, Cavanaugh moved to Rancho Palos Verdes, California, to attend school at Marymount College. He lived in California for one year but didn´t like driving so much, so he moved to Chicago, Illinois. Cavanaugh went to Columbia College Chicago while living in Chicago. He studied film making while there. In 2005, he graduated with a B.A. in Filmmaking. Cavanaugh spent one year riding his bicycle around Chicago and then moved back to Omaha, Nebraska, and has been living there since.

Rosa Chaidez
Music Video
Rosa Chaidez is a student at Metropolitan Community College currently working on an Associate Degree in Video and Audio Production. She has always considered herself a very creative person. When she was younger, she became very interested in art; she has been in an art class every year for the past eight to ten years. The first art form she learned was drawing and painting, and she has also enjoyed creative writing. In Chaidez´s last years in high school she began taking photography and became very interested in film and broadcast as well. In the past year, Chaidez has learned a lot about video and audio, from shooting techniques to editing programs and video equipment. She enjoys video production because it allows her to bring everything she has learned in the past and put it together in a creative visual form. For the past four months, Chaidez has been an intern at Channel 6, mostly working as an assistant producer of the local entertainment show The Omaha Buzz. This internship has given her a lot of experience and an inside look at broadcasting. It has driven her to go forward with her education because she can really see herself enjoying this field of work. It has opened Chaidez up as a person, and she has met a lot of people through it. Chaidez will also be going to a national video competition this summer after wining the state competition earlier this year. Her main interest is to learn as much as she can. It´s a wonderful feeling to understand something new for the first time. Chaidez wants to find a vocation that she enjoys and love the work that she does.

Connie Christian
Animation, Short Documentary
Connie Christian has had a love of films for over 40 years — her first memories of cinema include Mary Poppins, Father Goose and the Sound of Music. Since those early years, she has developed an interest in screen writing and film production. She is an avid film viewer and critic, following the works of her favorite directors. Although Christian´s professional life of a landscape designer is artistic in nature, her studies at Metropolitan Community College have allowed her a pathway to fulfill her true personal, creative vision. She is a fan of many film genres, wanting to experiment in all of them.

Neva Cozine
Short Film
Neva Cozine is an independent film maker from Omaha who recently completed her first short film Duval´s Gift that she wrote and directed. She has been involved with other films shot on location in Omaha as art director, props coordinator and script supervisor, as well as other production responsibilities. Cozine is currently working on other plays and screenplays and exploring the integration of the two.

Michael Curet
Music Video, Short Documentary
Puerto Rican artist Michael Curet was born February 28, 1973, in Manhattan, New York. As a young nuyorican growing up, his talents relied on the grip of his hands. Curet would exercise his daily for hours on end. After years of studying different artist styles and works, he grew to like other areas of art such as music and entertainment. In high school, Curet became popular for his accomplished works in a published school magazine that later gave him the insight to be more creative and detailed in his art. Illustration was his strong point until he was introduced to oil painting and airbrush in his early 20s. After failure to meet certain assignments due to his rebellious lines of artwork, Curet entered the Job Corps and later took his chance in the U.S. Army. He quickly developed a skill and firearm to battle rap as an underground hip-hop artist. He would later befriend a roommate and other members of his platoon that would later almost cost him his life. After surviving a brutal assault by five soldiers that left him for dead, he survived with temporary paralysis, mild memory loss and vertigo. After two years of recuperation, Curet set his sights for a comeback in his new gift of writing and rapping. After taking advice from a close friend about putting his work to film, Curet entered Metropolitan Community College with the intention of earning a merchandise management diploma. After completing the classes, he found a new hobby in video filmmaking and screenwriting. Several courses and just six months of filming later, Curet has made a lot of progress in a short time. He has felt that over the years his abilities to be a great artist in various areas have left a gap for him to fill and expand with more creative ideas. He´s prided himself in delivering the inspiration for others to follow in their dreams to succeed. Curet is destined to be great one day with his driven unstoppable determination of being better then his last works, even if it means failing in trying to do so.

Bryan Findell
Short Documentary
While growing up, Bryan Findell started skateboarding. His friend bought a video camera, and they filmed each other skateboarding. When Findell started college, he went into architecture but quickly grew tired of it. He knew how to do it but didn´t want to do it for 50 years. He thought about it and decided that whatever he was going to do for the next 50 years he had better enjoy it. He was still skateboarding and filming, and he always enjoyed editing, so he switched to video production, bought a Powerbook and started editing. Findell is about halfway through school and enjoying every second of it. He recently got a job with Mr. Video Productions in Bellevue to get experience.

Tim Guthrie
Animation

C.K. Hicks
Short Documentary
C.K. Hicks is a creative tech geek currently majoring in video production at Metropolitan Community College. He has a passion for digital environment design (matte painting) and compositing, along with similar hobbies like traditional photography. His desire is to work on feature films as a visual effects artist but for now focuses mostly on freelance and volunteer projects to learn and grow as much as possible.

Karla Higgins
Short Film
Karla Higgins earned a B.F.A. in Theatre from Drake University with an emphasis in performance in 1994. After working professionally with various theatres and touring companies locally and across the country, she settled down in Omaha and discovered a love for directing and writing both in video and in theatre. She eventually became the creative communications director for Bellevue Christian Center and found a need for formal training in video production. This led her to Metropolitan Community College where she worked with her creative and talented classmates on the short film Off Hand. Higgins used her background and contacts in theatre to contribute to the creation of this film with fellow students Mike Lee, Mark Swanson, Matt Paddick, Kevin Schatz, Adam Bradley, Dave Turnbo.

Ron Kafka/Nick Cordle
Art/Experimental
After meeting in a 4D Studio class at Metropolitan Community College, 40-year-old Ron Kafka and 19-year-old Nick Cordle collaborated in creating their final project. Kafka previously owned a lawn care business for 15 years and decided to sell it and go back to college to study art. Cordle, fresh out of high school and pursuing his dream of a career in graphic design, decided to further explore the many different areas of art. After Kafka struggled to come up with an idea for his final project and Cordle doing the same, the two came together to create their most interesting artwork of the quarter. The two had worked on separate pieces before with the same concept but never worked together. Creating this project inspired the two to further explore the boundaries of the art of animation.

Tom Larkin
Art/Experimental
Tom Larkin, who owns Lost Dog Studio, is an artist who resides in Omaha. Larkin creates his images using photography, computer, painting and drawing.

Leclair
Short Film
Leclair has been in the entertainment industry for more than 25 years. His talents started to shine in the third grade where he was the best square dancer in Mrs. Clark´s class. From there he moved onto acting in local college and community theatre productions in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Not finding the roles he cared for, he started writing plays (and lead roles for himself). Being produced on the local stages of New Hampshire was not enough for him, so he moved to New York City where his writings began to show on small stages off-off-Broadway and in many showcases. When his writing well dried up for a short time, Leclair began to perform standup comedy in the smaller clubs and cabarets throughout New York. His talents were recognized, and he began writing for distinguished people. Leclair then moved to central Florida where he started a wonderful career as a waiter in many of the theme park restaurants located in the area. Stagnant for almost five years, he began to write once more. The ten-minute plays were becoming very popular, and this was his bag. Ten minutes was his calling, and he has written many in this line. Being that even a ten-minute play can be difficult to produce due to time, money and space, he began to film.

Blake Mertins
Art/Experimental
Blake Mertins was born July 18, 1986. He was the last of six children. Mertins was a unique child who listened to the beat of a different drum; a drum less beaten. He made his way through middle and high school beating on that very drum and moved on to courses at the University of Nebraska–Omaha. He is currently a sophomore and undecided as far as a major goes.

Metropolitan Community College Special Projects Class
Feature Film
This film was the product of a Special Projects class in the winter of 2006 quarter at Metropolitan Community College. In that quarter, the class was to write, produce and edit a short film.

Todd Posphical
Art/Experimental, Short Documentary
Todd Posphical was born October 1969 in Panama City, Panama. His childhood was spent living in homes that were usually at the outer edge of the suburbs, almost rural in nature, but not quite. These living arrangements instilled in him an appreciation for both the city and the country. He graduated from Elkhorn High in 1988 and went on to the University of Nebraska–Omaha where he received a Bachelor´s of General Studies in 1994. Since then he has worked as a carpenter, concrete finisher, heavy equipment operator and foreman for numerous construction firms. Posphical´s introduction to video last year has led him to explore the possibilities of graduate school.

J.B Pravada
Animation, Short Film
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on virtually the same day, if not hour as Steven Speilberg, J.B. Pravada began a career in law and politics as a Washington, D.C. ´kid´ lawyer with the federal government during Watergate where he immediately ´felt´ something was amiss; published in several media. Pravada´s most recent achievement in the arts was being a guest artist at the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensives in July 2006 where he had the pleasure of being mentored by Gary Garrison, Marsha Norman, et. al. All invitees were honored with ´lifetime´ guest artist status.

Brian Reim
Feature Documentary
Brian Reim was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and has earned the highest honor in scouting, the Eagle Scout. In his early years of the Boy Scouts, he became interested in the environment and how to protect and preserve it through film and audio. He enjoys the environment visually and wants to inform the people of the world of what he has witnessed. Reim came up with the idea of interviewing his grandmother about her life growing up in the depression era of the lead and zinc mining industry and the resulting environmental impact on the land and people living in that area of Oklahoma.

Ken Revoy
Short Documentary
Ken Revoy was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. He graduated from Ralston High School, went to college at the University of Nebraska–Omaha and earned a B.S.B.A. in Finance and Banking. After that, Revoy continued his studies in photography and video at Metropolitan Community College (MCC). He moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and lived there for seven years and worked as a mortgage banker. After moving back to Omaha, Revoy re-enrolled at MCC taking video courses. He is self-employed, working in the video production market in Omaha. He loves working on shorter film projects because it gives him the opportunity to work on a variety of projects.

Laurie Richards
Feature Documentary
Among her many accomplishments, Laurie Richards has been the host of Next Exit, a magazine television program for Nebraska Educational Television, and board member of the Association of Film Commissioners, International. Her involvement with the film industry continues on many levels and has been the catalyst enabling her to create her own moving image presentation. She enjoys going to movies, reading and traveling.

Anne Scott
Art/Experimental
Anne Scott is a student artist currently attending Metropolitan Community College. She has not always seen herself as an artist; she did not grow up coloring outside the lines or with a paintbrush in hand. Growing up in Colorado evoked a rich sense of nature within her, so she finds herself most satisfied when she can integrate art and nature. Scott has spent the past three years painting, photographing and constructing sculptures all of which have a strong connection to the planet. She plans to continue exploring the natural world and contemplating the permanence and impermanence of biological things in her art. Scott also plans to continue making art in non-traditional spaces with an effort to bring her creative expression together with that of the surrounding environment.

Kevin Schatz
Short Film
Kevin Schatz is a 20-year-old Metropolitan Community College (MCC) student. He is currently finished up his Associate Degree in Video and Audio Production withplans to go back to MCC for an Associate Degree in Animation. Schatz graduated high school from David City in 2007. He started at MCC pursuing an animation degree when he found his passion for making movies and working with video production. He really enjoys all aspects of video production and some day hopes to put together full-length movies. Som of Schatz´s hobbies include working on antique and classic cars with his father, watersports such as jetskiing and boating and raising African ciclids in one of his three freshwater tanks.

Andrew Thien
Art/Experimental
Andrew Thein is a student in music at Creighton University. He also plays guitar in the Omaha band called Indian and the Pale Ales.

John Thien
Art/Experimental
John Thein is an associate professor of Art who teaches drawing and printmaking in the Fine Art Department at Creighton University. He received his M.A. and M.F.A. in Printmaking from the University of Iowa. Over the span of his career, he has had more than 30 one-man exhibitions.

Salam Tims
Short Film
With Pickpocket, his first (and utterly Indie) film, Salam Tims is answering a vocation for filmmaking long-delayed while he had a career as systems technologist, raised a family and studied film, anticipating and awaiting the advent of (affordable) digital production. He´s acted in stage productions ranging from Shakespeare, restoration comedy and Tennessee Williams to Stephen Sondheim. For several years, he has practiced film-craft, shooting and editing multi-performance digital-film versions of theater and dance productions. Tims is currently nearing end of production on Thieves Guilde—an original fantasy-action-adventure—and preparing to shoot Uncommon Voices, a retelling of the gospel of Luke.

Lindsay Trapnell
Short Film
Lindsay Trapnell is currently an M.F.A. candidate in film production at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, California. She has written, produced, edited and directed short films in both fiction and documentary and has written a few feature-length screenplays. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan with an emphasis in film studies and screenwriting. She has lived across the Midwest including Michigan, Illinois and Nebraska. Her family currently resides in Omaha. Other interests include writing, music and photography. She hopes to continue working in the field of media arts.

Travis Upshaw
Music Video
Travis Upshaw was fortunate to see much of the world throughout his childhood. With his father in the military, he lived in Missouri, England, Maryland, Arkansas and Nebraska. Experiencing those different settings has allowed him to shape and shave memories into their own little stories.

Verneal Wokurka
Feature Documentary
Verneal Wokurka was born in Melbourne, Florida, though spent the greater part of her life in Omaha, Nebraska. She began going to Metropolitan Community College (MCC) to obtain her Associate in Still Photography. Once earning her degree, she decided to widen her photography skills by continuing into MCC´s Audio/Video Program. For the past couple of years, Wokurka has been working as a commercial photographer at a catalog company in Omaha, as well as worked on a couple of independent film productions.

Molly & Aaron Zavitz
Short Film
Aaron and Molly Zavitz met at the University of Nebraska–Omaha where Molly holds a degree in Art History and Aaron a degree in Dramatic Arts. They won first place at the Omaha Hot Shops awards for Julien in 2007, i.d. and No Outlet in 2005. i.d. won first place at the Fort Omaha Film Conference, as well as a nomination for an Omaha Entertainment Award in 2006. Takenwas an official selection at the Omaha Film Festival and won the National Best Drama category for Videomaker Magazine in 2007. In 2005, they began Fam Films, an event videograpy company. They live in ´Little Italy´ with their Chihuahua.