SEATTLE — Since 2007, when it was founded by three teenagers, the National Film Festival for Talented Youth has encouraged people in their teens and 20s to get creative with their video cameras.
University of Washington freshman Adam McArthur, a graduate of Cascade High School in Everett, has participated before. But this year he has four short movies in the festival, which continues through April 26 at theaters in Seattle.
McArthur’s animated and live action movies were selected from more than 1,000 worldwide submissions. The festival this weekend, with a focus on female directors and their movies, features 248 films from 30 states and 25 countries.
The 2014 festival was attended by more than 12,000 movie-goers and just as many people are expected this year.
Now 18, McArthur has been making movies since he was 12.
“I love making movies,” he said.
He is a freelance visual effects artist, director and cinematographer. He’s worked on more than 40 short films and features, won film festival awards and was a visual effects artist on SyFy’s “Z-Nation.”
When he’s not in class at the UW or riding the bus to and from his Silver Lake- area home, McArthur is working on his next music video, commercial or feature film.
He likes writing his own comedy sketches and zombie bits and he is well known on YouTube among the young cinema crowd.
“I want to go into full-time cinematography, but my college major is business. I want to run the business end of it as well,” McArthur said. “I don’t care where I end up, I just care that I am with people who are as enthused as I am about film and who enjoy the work.”
McArthur admits that most of the movies he watches are online.
“I don’t have time for TV or movie theaters,” he said. “I watch a lot of music videos because that’s where a lot of the creative short film work is. There’s a lot of camaraderie among (movie) people and we know each other’s work.”
One of McArthur’s shorts at the festival is “Pip the Cup,” about a trashed Styrofoam cup and its friend, a banana peel.
Frame by frame, McArthur painstakingly filmed, edited and animated the short.
“I probably have 300 hours of just editing in this project,” he said. “On a zero budget.”
McArthur uses his own small hand-held camera as well as an expensive RED digital cinema camera owned by a business partner.
“I hope people will come out for the festival,” he said. “I will be there the whole time, picking up new ideas, talking to other film directors and asking about jobs.”
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege.
If you go
The National Film Festival for Talented Youth continues through Sunday at the Seattle International Film Festival Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle. For information about tickets and film showings, go to www.nffty.org. More about Adam McArthur is at www.mcarthurfilms.com.
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