“Made in Bloomington” films play at IU Cinema

On Tuesday and Wednesday  at IU Cinema, filmmakers from the Bloomington chapter of the Indiana Filmmakers Network showcased their locally made films as part of the free “Made in Bloomington” film series.

The series was part of the four-day “Made in Indiana” film series at IU Cinema, which kicked off April 30 with the student-made film “Mudcity.”

The Indiana Filmmakers Network consists of seven networks throughout Indiana. The Bloomington chapter was started in summer 2011 and meets the last Tuesday of every month at the IU Innovation Center.

“What we’re trying to do is create an environment where people can come into the group and just explore what they actually might want to contribute,” said Barbara Ann O’Leary, who organizes many of the programs within the network for the Bloomington chapter.

“One of the things that I really like is that it’s very non-hierarchical, and it’s just relaxed. Anyone, students or people who just live in the community, can come.”

The first film at the series premiere was “Pi Bake,” a two-minute-19-second stop-motion film that documents the pie-baking process.

Laura Ivins-Hulley, director of the film and a graduate student of the Department of Communications and Culture, said she made the film because “it seemed like a nice way to spend the day.” She also made it March 14, which is National Pi Day.

Kate Chaplin of Karmic Courage Productions directed the film “Home Security,” a 10-minute short about a salesman who breaks into people’s homes to scare them into purchasing a home security system.

“The Puppet Master,” directed by Dylan Cashbaugh, who graduated in December and studied telecommunications and communications and culture, features a group of human-sized puppets that rebel against their master.

“This is a lot different from stuff that I’ve done in that it’s a lot more fantasy related,” Cashbaugh said. “It took a lot more people to work on it, and it really just created an entirely different work than anything else I’ve worked on.”

Jon Stante helped produce “The Puppet Master” and “Nathan and the Luthier,” a 53-minute coming-of-age story directed and written by Jacob Sherry that premiered in April 2011 at IU Cinema to a sold-out house. The film was also part of last year’s Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis. “Nathan and the Luthier” was the last film shown Tuesday.

Stante said helping to produce the two films was nothing like he had done before.
IU student Thomas Beaver, who acted as one of the puppets in “The Puppet Master,” said the type of acting was different for him.

“You just sort of picked a spot and hoped that your eyes glazed over and that you looked like a puppet,” he said. “And that was all thanks to Dylan’s directions.”
On Wednesday, the cinema screened “Until the Last Time,” “Public Art,” “Dark Worlds: Slasher” and “8 Wheels of Death.”

O’Leary said it was a “very, very big offer” when IU Cinema Director Jon Vickers invited filmmakers from IFN to show their films for the series.

“One of the things that I love about this space so much is that it’s a repurposed theater that’s unique to the film community at a very high level,” she said. “And there is nothing like seeing something on screen in this way.”