Kimberly Cannon | The Valdosta Daily Times A crowd gathers Monday to watch Valdosta State University student films at Red Door Records. 

VALDOSTA — Valdosta State University mass-media students screened their short film at a packed Red Door Records Monday evening.

While one film was shown at Red Door, student documentaries about the election board, Break Bread Together, Alzheimer’s Caregiver Time Out and more have already been shown. 

The screenings are part of the students’ mass-media capstone course.

Jason Brown, VSU assistant professor of mass media, said the films represent a culmination of everything the students have learned. 

“Our students have a lot of skills and we want to do what we can to cultivate those,” he said. 

Among the students were the creators of the narrative short film “Pastiche,” which included Haiden DelaCruz, director; Sylvia Leong, cinematographer; Jeremy Johns, editor; and Morgan Davis, audio/sound. 

“Pastiche,” a film about upheaval among a group of clones, required hours of work by its creators, as a film about clones requires a lot of editing, which can be a frame-by-frame process.

“There’s a lot of shots in this where they recreated actors, layered them over and did all this masking,” Brown said of the “Pastiche” creators. 

Johns briefly explained what that process entailed. 

“It’s basically a lot of masking … or some people call it rotoscoping, when you take one image and try to cut someone out of another image and kind of put them in while they’re moving at the same time,” he said. 

DelaCruz said creating the effects takes a significant amount of time. 

“The shoot-out (in ‘Pastiche’), which was about two seconds maybe, that was like four hours of work for Jeremy (Johns),” DelaCruz said. 

Brown closed the night by saying it is important when students create work to support each other, by viewing the films at screenings. 

Another capstone screening will be held at Lowndes County Historical Society and Museum 11 a.m., Dec. 2. 

Kimberly Cannon is a Reporter with The Valdosta Daily Times. Her extension is 1376.