Flash Film Commission, formerly known as Independent Films, is one of the many student media organizations at Kent State University. The Independent Films’ mission statement was dropped when there was a decline in demand to produce independent films. Currently, FFC is working toward rebranding and defining their goals in hopes to become similar to film commissions in big cities like Cleveland.
FFC is there to help aspiring filmmakers learn how to make their dreams a reality. They work toward this goal by taking students’ ideas out of the classroom and transforming them into real works. According to the current president of the FFC, Alexa Warmuth, “the organization provides resources like crew, databases, cast, talented actors and actresses, as well as locations.”
FFC is most well known by students involved in the Digital Media Production program at Kent State. The DMP degree requires students to take multiple courses, many of which assign students to make a short film. These films are the ones that are displayed at Flash Film Festival, which is an event FFC hosts at the end of each year.
Flash Film Festival is an opportunity for students to showcase their work to professionals in the industry. Students can also receive once in a lifetime feedback from professionals and also get the chance to win awards. Last year, the Flash Film Festival sold out their venue at The Kent Stage in downtown Kent where they featured 12 student films.
However, even with all these amazing opportunities, FFC is struggling to stay afloat as a student media organization.
Student Media at Kent State needs to raise roughly $300 to remain a student organization. The Flash Film Festival is typically the main source of funding for FFC. This means that all the money FFC collects from their end-of-the-year Flash Film Festivals must go back toward Kent State Student Media. FFC hopes to be able to start doing more fundraising outside of the Flash Film Festival in order to put money into the organization for equipment, staff, production and any other miscellaneous costs.
Another challenge FFC faces as an organization is that they are currently run by a small board of students and do not have any defined members of the organization. A potential reason for this is that a board position is a paid position, so any regular member of the organization may feel underappreciated or confused as to why they are not getting paid.
However, there are many opportunities students involved with FFC will have the ability to partake in. These include learning new skills, working with advanced technology, collaborating with others interested in your path and making connections in the industry.
FFC has not enforced the idea of adding more events or students to the organization, but ever since their new board stepped up this year they are hoping to reach the next level. Warmuth shared some of the new ideas FFC has for their changing organization.
One change FFC is making this year is increasing its reach specifically on social media to create more awareness of the organization. FFC mainly wants to make sure they are reaching all Kent State students, due to their lack of diversity in majors within the organization. It is important that students know FFC is not limited to DMP or MDJ students, anybody at Kent State can join or attend events.
For example, Warmuth discussed a mixer that FFC recently held for students at the performing arts school. Films do not just need producing and filmmakers, they also need actors. FFC hopes to reach out to students interested in acting, as well as people within the Kent community for roles that are not easy for students to portray, such as mothers, fathers and young siblings.
Another event that took place this semester was a Halloween event. Warmuth discussed that FFC would show multiple short films made by students before showing a well-known Halloween movie. FFC is planning to also add small fundraising events throughout the semester to hopefully be able to give out grants to student filmmakers.
FFC is a Student Media organization that is very beneficial for students and has the potential to become a much more well-known group on campus. The FFC website is currently undergoing maintenance as they work on rebranding. You can still get more information about FFC on social media and reach out to the current board members or DMP professors for help. Continue to look out for new events and website changes from FFC this year and help support your schools’ Student Media organizations.
