Filmmaking Careers Launched by The Keller ISD Film Fest

The Keller ISD Film Fest has turned Jake Wangner into a filmmaker.

The Fossil Ridge junior not only took home trophies Thursday night for all three categories he entered, one of them will be shown Saturday at the South by Southwest Film Fest in Austin. Wangner's brief documentary "Julian Edmondson - Who I am," featuring a 2011 Ridge grad and basketball standout, is a finalist in the High School Short Films at the Austin contest. "SAFE," a Film Fest entry from Ridge students Reece and Pierce Harvell, also will show in Austin.

Wangner took part in the Keller ISD Film Fest for the third consecutive year after taking an audio/video production class from Manuel Vasquez. "Mr. Vasquez made me make a video for this my freshman year, and I liked it so much I just kept doing it," Wangner said. Wangner also won trophies in the music video and story categories. He plans to pursue a career in media production.

Joel Carter, a Central senior, also has been inspired by participating in the Film Fest and in broadcasting classes. Carter had his hand in several entries in the comedy category, including the winning Indiana Jones spoof "Jack Stone and the Curse of the Black Plague," a film he made with classmates Mitchell Santiago and Cody Hallford.
"It took us two weeks to film it, and we kind of got into trouble because we took too many people out of class to participate in mass battles," Carter said.

He only took two days to make "The Most Uninteresting Man in the World," another finalist entry in comedy. Carter plans to turn his passion into his vocation. He received a scholarship to study film production at the San Francisco Art Institute.