Many have tried to snare their 15 minutes of fame, but senior telecommunications and creative writing major Aaron Wittwer is making his time count.
In the process, he's giving others a chance to enjoy the same films that inspired him to pursue a path in the film making industry. For Wittwer, it all begins with a paper and pen.
"I found I really liked writing, and I combined that with my love for movies," he said, "I like the aspect of being a screenwriter and director, all in one."
His appreciation for the big screen was cultured in high school, where he experienced movies that weren't exactly the blockbuster hits that most teens enjoyed. Instead he found interest in the older, more atypical flicks. There are a few that Wittwer deems his favorites, such as "Possession," the 1981 entanglement of a love affair and a voodoo project gone awry. The 1970s film "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" combines the psychedelic scene of parties and promiscuity and is another of his favorites.
He said his favorite inspirational directors aren't out there just chasing fame and a big check.
"The directors that inspire me are Andrzej Zulawski and Hal Hartley, who has great dialogue in his work," Wittwer said. "They make sincere movies, you can tell that they are just trying to make a good film."
Wittwer said he wants to become a behind-the-scenes maestro and has already begun his path to possible fame. This year, the Cinema Entertainment Immersion Program, a collaborative venture between the College of Sciences and Humanities, College of Fine Arts, and the College of Communication, Information, and Media chose to produce two of Wittwer's scripts. Three other students also had their scripts chosen for the project.
"The first is called ‘All in One Night,' a love story with surreal elements," he said. "The second is about a couple who is separated and gets brought together when their cat gets ran over, which is called ‘A Good Cat.'"
Matt Mullins, assistant professor of English, has seen Wittwer's passion translate into talent. Wittwer was his student in English 410, a screenwriting class.
"Aaron is an excellent student," he said. "One of the best I've had in the two years I've been here at Ball State. His writing is thematically and stylistically unique. By this I mean you know it's a Wittwer script by the time you're a page into it. He has the ability to create both evocative scenarios and write dialogue that stays off the nose while offering deeper subtext."
As Mullins points out, Wittwer has a distinct writing style. Wittwer said he's driven by substance in a script, which he believes is lacking in today's films.
"I don't care for mainstream movies, I'm against the 3-D movie trend," Wittwer said. "What draws me to films here are no pretension. An all honest passion for the project."
That same drive also led him to begin "Midnight Movies," which runs every Thursday at 9:30 p.m. in the David Letterman Communication and Media Building Room 125.
Midnight Movies was named after the cinematic phenomenon of screening off-beat movies at midnight, which began in the early 1970s in a few urban cities and eventually spread across the country. The screening of non-mainstream pictures at midnight was mainly aimed at building a cult film audience and featured movies every week, in which sometimes it'd be the same movie for months, a year even.
At the midnight movies, Wittwer and other students get to enjoy cult classics that get the audience chuckling.
"I began Midnight Movies about two years ago. [My] friends and I were talking about beginning a film series that was an underground, B-movie kind of thing," he said.
Although the Midnight Movies is open to all, Wittwer's friends are some of the main attendees. In many ways, they play a supportive role in his life.
Junior telecommunications major Ethan Gibbs has been to every Midnight Movie.
"It's great what he does, if not for him, there wouldn't be a place where these movies are being shown," Gibbs said.
Wittwer is working with one of his close friends, Derek Cox, on his honors thesis by making short films.
"I wrote three separate scripts that are all thematically connected in some way. They are a mix of genres that include horror and drama," Wittwer said.
Mullins said there's great potential for Wittwer's future.
"I will say that he's a pleasure to work with, a thoughtful and incisive student who's great to have in workshop, and a true champion of some of the best bad movies of all time," he said. "I expect to see his name in lights. Truly."
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