HPU graduate and Santa Anna native Laurie Powers will be recognized as one of the six finalists for the DC Shorts competition at the Navy Memorial, located at 701 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. on Friday evening.
The DC Shorts Screenplay Competition is a very different kind of screenwriting competition according to its organizers. A panel of judges made up of filmmakers, screenwriters and critics have reviewed over 145 screenplays and the top six will be read, followed by an audience vote to determine the winner. One lucky winner will be awarded $2,000 to shoot their project. This completed film will screen at DC Shorts 2015.
Powers has been writing most of her life but didn’t start thinking of her writing as anything other than a side hobby until 2007.
“I had worked on a few short films and was involved in theatre and wanted to create my own stories. I wrote and shot a couple of short films and had a play produced,” explained Powers. “About the same time there was a lot of trouble brewing in the visual effects industry so I decided it was a good time to go back to get my MFA (Masters of Fine Arts).”Just some of Power’s resume includes visual effects work on many well known mainstream films including the following:
Scary Movie 3 (2003) – digital artist
Friday Night Lights (2004) – digital compositor
The Pacifier (2005) – lead digital artist
Cheaper by the Dozen (2005) – digital art director
Madea’s Family Reunion (2006) – digital compositor
The Invisible (2007) – digital art supervisor
Surrogates (2009) – compositor
Conan the Barbarian (2011) – lead compositor
Men in Black 3 (2012) – compositor
The Amazing Spiderman (2012) – compositor
As a student at Wilkes University in 2010, Powers enrolled in the low residency program (low residency she explained, required her to be on campus only about 10 days per semester). She graduated with her Masters of Fine Arts in 2013.
“At that point, I had sunk a lot of money into tuition, so I was determined to write and submit as much as possible. Gotta justify that tuition money,” said Powers.
When asked how it feels to win and get published, Powers stated the journey had been filled with many emotions.
“One of the first lessons we received in the Wilkes Creative Writing program was on rejection, how everyone – even the great writers – receive rejection after rejection, and how one must persevere. So, I was prepared for that, and although it’s difficult at first, I quickly ‘got over it’. But, honestly, just one acceptance letter can erase any number of rejections from your subconscious,” stated Powers. “It’s exciting when something you’ve created is appreciated that much by others. It’s like when you’re in junior high and you find out the boy you have a crush on likes you back.”
She further explained that sometimes after the initial excitement wore off she would downplay her success, second guessing herself and often telling others, “It’s just a short film contest, it’s not like I won an Oscar.” But now she is realizing she should take in the success and possibly enjoy it. “I’m trying to make myself stop doing that,” said Powers. “No one starts off by winning an Oscar, right? And for every one of my acceptances, lots of other people received rejections, so who do I think I am to be downplaying that?”
Powers was a roommate of the author of this article, while they both attended Howard Payne University. She is also a talented musician and artist. BrownwoodNews.com wishes her much success at Friday night’s reading.
