Above: Schuette at South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin.
[dropcap]E[/dropcap]ver since middle school, Jack Schuette (12) knew he would be a filmmaker. Since then, he has graduated from making small comedy films with friends on his Flip video camera to using more expensive Sony cameras to produce an award-winning film shown in prestigious film festivals.
Schuette’s three minute long film titled “Always With You” featured Brendan Martin (12), who plays the role of a boy who recently lost his father, played by Dr. Charlie Scott. The original idea behind the film was one where the main character would wear a “magic shirt” that when worn, someone who was recently lost in their life would come back and help them through the shirt-wearer’s struggles. Schuette said that Mr. Gillentine rejected the idea of the magical shirt, so he decided to take a more unconventional route.
“Dr. Scott has only worked in comedies at Kinkaid, and I knew he was a really good actor,” Schuette said about casting Scott in the role as the lost father. Schuette had never seen Martin act, but Mr. Gillentine convinced Schuette to cast Martin in the role. “When I was first on set, I was a bit nervous about Brendan, but he did a fantastic job,” Schuette admitted.
With the help of seniors Kevin Mora, Connor Wood, and Daniel Vernik, the project was filmed all in one day. Schuette estimated that the script writing process took about a month to finish.
“I love editing. I edited the script myself,” Schuette said.
The film’s success landed Schuette showings in South By Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) in Austin as well as Sun Valley Film Festival in Sun Valley, Idaho. In Sun Valley, his film placed second in the Future Filmmakers Forum out of around 150 entries. Schuette attended SXSW for two days where he attended workshops, spent time at the Texas short film showings, and got to see the world premiere of “Everybody Wants Some,” described by Schuette as “the 80’s Dazed and Confused.”
“Sun Valley is in a smaller town and they got all the film students that were there together for breakfast one day,” Schuette said and continued to describe the closer-knit feel of the Sun Valley Festival. Jack Falahee, the male lead in How to Get Away with Murder, ate breakfast with the film students and followed the students around for a day.
On a personal sidenote, Falahee happens to be best friends with Schuette’s favorite EDM artist, Elephante. Falahee was able to score Schuette backstage passes to all of Elephante’s concerts in Texas.
Though Schuette will not be majoring in film next year at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he will be working with Dream State, a production company in the upstate New York in his free time.
“I am pretty much just going to be on call with them,” Schuette said. “They are really friendly people so if I want to help out anywhere they are happy to have me. It’s more of a sporadic thing and not really an official job. I’ll just be a person in the area they can call on breaks and what not if they need help.”
