Page 42 March 2015 Local film stars shine at national student competition By Katlyn Ewens It all started with a made up animal and some fate at a summer art program. Five years ago three middle-schoolers met at an art camp at Scottsdale Artists’ School. Allison Gooch, sophomore at Arcadia High School, Jacob Staudenmaier, freshman at Arcadia High School, and Joshua Babu, freshman at Notre Dame High School, were at the same place at the same time. “I was sitting at a table by myself and in came Jake. I had never met him before, but he sits down right next to me and we strike up a conversation,” Joshua said. “Soon, the same happened with Alli, and from there our friendship began.” At their first encounter, Jacob told the group about a time when he played “Animal,” a verbal memory game, and created a Babushka. Allison and Joshua thought this was hilarious and they started doodling images, bringing this creature to life. Little did they know, that day they created the logo for their soon- to-be production company, Babushka Productions. Last year the team competed in the 10th anniversary 48-hour film making challenge sponsored by the Almost Famous Film Festival. This competition brought 61 contestants from all over Arizona and even parts of Southern California, 49 of which met the submission deadline. Babushka Productions entered #Selfie, a suspense film that relied almost solely on texting dialogue. Out of the 49 qualifying contestants, their film finished in the top 20 and was shown on an AMC Theatres’ big screen in downtown Phoenix. Not only did they have a strong finish, they were the youngest group to make the top 20 in the history of the competition. The group grew closer and started socializing with each other’s friends. That is how Dallas Greene, a freshman at Arcadia, joined the team. All four of them went on to compete in the National High School Competition hosted by The American Bar Association. This submission requirement for the competition was a film portraying the history of the Magna Carta, which is celebrating its 800th anniversary this year. Babushka Productions went a little out of their comfort zone with the Magna Carta project, but enjoyed the challenges it brought. “We [Babushka Productions] usually do horror movies or comedies, but we decided the Magna Carta project was going to need Arcadia kids have come together to create Babushka Productions. to be more of a documentary style,” Jacob said. “That was something we had never tried before, so it was pretty fun doing something different.” These challenges clearly did not affect the team because the film they submitted, “The Great Charter” finished in the top three and is still in the running to be the national winner, which will be announced this month. They all learned a lot from this experience and patiently await the results. “With every film I produce, I always learn something new.” Allison said. “I had never done a true documentary style film, so it was really cool to get a taste of documentary filmmaking.” The team will go another 48 sleepless hours as they compete in the same film competition they dominated last year. This will be Dallas’ first with the team. ARCADIA’S COOKBOOK WANTS YOU! Email amanda@arcadianews.com BAKE? COOK? FLAMBE? DO YOU ´

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