As romantic music plays in the background, a Coke and a MoonPie fall in love while visiting popular Chattanooga attractions such as Coolidge Park, the Tennessee Aquarium and Rock City.
The resultant two-minute video is Signal Mountain High School junior Clint Blevins’ first-place winning entry for EPB and ESE Networks’ Chattanooga Rocks video contest. Entrants are challenged to create a video featuring what makes Chattanooga a great place to live.
“When I think of Chattanooga, the two things I think of are Coke and MoonPie,” said Clint, a junior currently finishing his first year in SMHS’ two-year film studies class.
He said the class brainstormed ideas as a group, then spent three days filming and a few more going through the editing process.
“I wanted them to make a film that highlighted all of their progress as film studies students,” said SMHS film studies teacher Matt Doebler. “I’m really proud that they planned out the process from start to finish and everything was intentional.”
The strength and simplicity of the story is most likely what made the film stand out to judges, said Clint.
“It was easy for us to portray the story and easy for the audience to understand what we were doing,” he said.
Clint said he has learned through his class that attention to every detail, such as the selection of the romantic music, is important to the production of a good film.
“It’s not just one aspect that makes it good,” he said.
The $2,500 first-place prize will be used to purchase a new digital single-lens reflex camera for SMHS’ film studies program, he said.
“It will give us more range for what we can film,” said Clint.
Other SMHS film studies students who helped with the project are Shaw Davidson, Charlie Trageser, Ben Gruber, Lydia Dubois, Doug Roin, James Singleton and David Harold.