Todd Wahlquist, Theater & Film

The making of a film can be very taxing, both mentally and financially, and I appreciate very much the Office of Research and Creative Work helping to lessen both of those demands. The total budget for my film was approximately $5,000; therefore, the $1,000 provided by the Research and Creative Work Office was a significant factor in my being able to complete the final stages of post-production this past spring.

Specifically, there were two main occurrences in the process of making my film that I was able to deal with effectively that, without the support of the scholarship, I would have been unable to overcome.

First, there were two shots in the film that needed to be filmed in slow-motion. After we had completed the scenes, processed the film, and looked at the footage, I realized the action was not slow enough. Because of the scholarship, I was able to investigate my only option for solving this problem. I sent the selected shots to a laboratory in Denver and they were able to slow the action down through a process known as “Step Printing.” The laboratory cost for those two simple shots was several hundred dollars that I would otherwise have been unable to pay.

The other area of my film that was aided significantly by the support of the Office of Research and Creative Work was the music. There were many moments throughout the film that needed a specific emphasis or feel to them that I was unable to create through ordinary means on the sound track. However, the scholarship funds enabled me to contact a composer and enlist his help in rounding out many scenes in the film.

Equally important as the specific places I was able to use the money is the general feeling of confidence and security it provided. Throughout the process, as I would encounter problems, in the back of my mind I knew I would have the resources to solve them. The support from the Office of Research and Creative Work granted me the security to worry about creative areas of filmmaking without developing ulcers over the financial areas.

A VHS copy of the film is on file in the Office of Research and Creative Work, BYU.