Students screen projects

The connections run deep between the Newport Beach Film Festival — which is about to present its 10th annual screening — and OCC’s film department. The festival’s chief executive, Gregg Schwenk, is a former OCC student and so is the programming director, Erik Forssell.

Those relationships were undoubtedly instrumental in the community college becoming one of the first higher-ed schools to have a special program dedicated to short films created by its students shown in the festival — a partnership now in its sixth year.

This year’s 90-minute OCC Shorts program presents six films that couldn’t represent a wider variety of genres. They were picked from among 35 to 40 entries.

“Every year I’m amazed at some of the projects that come in,” said Scott Broberg, who coordinates the collaboration.

While many of the films have plot holes and technical kinks that make them difficult to follow for a general audience, they attempt some interesting effects. There’s a black-and-white, film noir-style silent film inspired by the song that provides its soundtrack (“100 Proof”), a science fiction film with a strange and abstract plot (“Vega”), and a documentary on homeless musicians in Laguna Beach (“Shelter Me”).

The highlight of the program, “Boggle Nights,” is a roughly 20-minute comedy that parodies the idea of a competitive circuit centered on the word game Boggle (the filmmakers confess that they didn’t know such a circuit actually existed until they made the movie).

Inspired by the poignancy of the classic chess film “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” and the ridiculousness of “Dodgeball,” students Richard Castrence and Rachel Hart directed and produced the film, which contains several impressive montages, a solid narrative and some amusing slapstick acting.

Some of the other offerings lack the same coherence and story structure, but present a few interesting visual effects.

Because the films were all created as projects for OCC film production classes, the directors and producers were challenged to include elements like time-lapse photography and chase scenes.

Making films that aspire to be professional enough to be shown on the big screen to paying audiences forces students to deal with the pressures that accompany any large-scale collaboration.

Filming some of the scenes in “Jacked,” an action comedy about two friends who throw a third in the trunk of their car only to have it stolen with him in it, required dozens of actors and crew members to spend a whole day together.

“Keeping 20 people happy, fed and focused for 12 hours all on one day [is difficult],” said Beate Piecha, one of the producers of the final film on the program.

For many aspiring filmmakers, the OCC film department provides a much cheaper way of getting hands-on training with expensive, professional-grade equipment like boom microphones, lighting kits and HD video cameras.

“The OCC program has been amazing for helping us take our ideas and put them on film,” said Winston Tao, who made an abstract film called “?Aldow.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Newport Beach Film Festival

WHERE: Regency Lido Theater (3459 Via Lido, Newport Beach)

WHEN: April 23 to 30

COST: Varies

TO PURCHASE TICKETS: www.newportbeachfilmfest.com

Reporter ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.