The Tioga ISD theater department made history in February.
Three students—Kenzie Lewter, Bella Lewter and Allie Hammer—competed in the UIL state film festival in Austin with their traditional animated film, “Charles the Shifty Dog.”
“We’ve made the semifinals every year but never broke [through], so this year, we finally made it through, and then when we got there, we ended up placing sixth out of 1A through 3A,” said Haley Hertel, the Tioga High School theater and UIL coordinator.
When she started her position at Tioga, students only competed in the oneact play.
However, thanks to her competitive nature and strong desire to win, Hertel said, she entered students in the three theater UIL competitions: the one-act play, theatrical design and film.
The students carved out time to create each project, mainly outside of school hours.
“It was a three-minute film, but it took us months to put all of it together,” Kenzie said. “We started at the beginning of the school year and … we did traditional animation. Everything we did was handdrawn— every single frame.” To complete the project, the students divided responsibilities.
Hammer, as the lead animator, created the keyframes and was the originator of Charles the Dog—a doodle of the Lewters’ family dog that became the inspiration behind their short film.
“It’s a dog made out of about six sticks and a circle,” Hammer said, laughing.
Isabella was responsible for writing the script and coloring, while Kenzie handled the small keyframes between shots and worked on sound effects.
“Getting to try a new type of film and all of that has been really motivating and made us want to do it even more next year because now we know there’s some kind of payoff for it,” Bella said.
The trio have been participating in the film competition since their freshman year.
“It was just really rewarding because we saw all of our hard work go into accomplishing something,” Hammer said. “We made it to state. It was awesome.”
For these juniors, competing in this event opened new doors to scholarships and opportunities.
“This has definitely been a kind of a motivation because of how much fun it was to see our film on the big screen,” Bella said. “To just have like a little slice of that makes it seem like, ‘Oh, a career in this would be a lot of fun.’” There were more success stories as other Tioga students competed in the film competition.
Amelia Strittmatter, Kendal Kearns and Graci Whisenant advanced to the state semifinals with their documentary, “A Change of Heart.”
Additionally, Bella, Kenzie, Hammer and Gavyn Redfearn made it to round two with their narrative piece, “The Completely Bearable Weight of Mediocre Talent.”
Marcello Torres, Kallin Henderson and Anibal Becerra also reached the second round with their narrative, “GøRT: Rap’s Ninth or Tenth Serial Killer,” according to Tioga’s theater department’s Facebook post.
If there’s one message Bella would share with fellow students, it’s to encourage them to get involved and try something new. “Getting to be there and getting to be around so many other kids who have been working as hard as you do—it’s just it’s one of the best things I’ve experienced in my high school career,” she said.
