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Claremont teen keeps it fresh with Pom contest, film projects Like most kids, David Reynosa likes contests. You may remember various competitions sponsored by ketchup and cereal brands: “Who can name our product?” “Send in three proofs of purchase for a chance to win a grand prize!” The kind he enters are a little different. David, aged 16, makes movies. Using his HVX200 Panasonic camera and Final Cut Pro editing software, the Western Christian High School student has entered numerous short film contests. The challenges have been launched by sponsors such as Heinz 57, the GotMilk? campaign and Apple computers. None, however, have brought him more notice than a recent contest sponsored by Pom Wonderful. As second prize-winner in the Pom Tea Video Contest, David will receive $250 from the pomegranate grower. His video is highlighted on the Pomfresh.com website, along with those of the grand prize winner and first runner-up. David hopes that Pom Wonderful! will do what they did last year: showcase the top three films as advertising shorts in theaters throughout New York and Los Angeles, including the Laemmle chain. Whether or not he achieves that exposure, the teenaged auteur is pleased. “I felt great,” David said of the news that his 54-second video, “Free Radical Hunter,” had placed. “I’m just glad I made it into the top three. It was a good experience the whole way through.”
More than one way to skin a pomegranate The contest, which ran from Oct. 22, 2007 to Dec. 31, 2008, drew more than 100 submissions. As reported in the Goliath Business News, they ranged “from a rapping grandmother to innovative animated shorts.” Their mission?: to come up with the craziest way to open a pomegranate. David’s method was just crazy enough to get plenty of votes on the PomFresh website. To get to those tasty seeds, David’s outdoorsman protagonist goes hunting for unstable molecules. Western Christian alumni and Azusa Pacific University film student Morgan Barajas plays the survivalist, who combat-crawls through a Southeast Asian jungle, his sights set on a juicy red pomegranate.
Obscured by brush, camouflage makeup and an old military jacket borrowed from David’s veteran father, Mr. Barajas reaches for the pomegranate, inserts and lights a fuse, and hurls the fruit like the grenade. The red seeds rain down, granting him access to his favorite snack. Shot in a rugged creek-side location in the Covina Hills, “Free Radical Hunter” consists of 10 shots, each requiring about three takes. The professional look of the film—shot in two hours—is remarkable, especially considering that it was a last-minute project. David was browsing through a web directory of video contests when he came across the Pom Wonderful contest. “There were only 10 days left until the contest ended, but I said, ‘Why not?’” David said. David, who served as director of photography, asked his friend and frequent video collaborator Jiro Oka, also a student at Western Christian High School, to help him with the video. Jiro co-directed the film, along with Barajas. It is not surprising that three winning filmmakers would hail from Western Christian, as the high school features a film class taught by Jeremiah Blessinger. David also honed his chops in a Citrus College course on high-definition filmmaking. Though the winners were announced just last week, David—whose work may be seen on his YouTube video channel “In the Lunchbox”—is already on to his next few projects. He is creating a music video for school and making plans for a full-length thriller with an underlying Christian message. David also helps spread a Christian message via his videos of a weekly entertainment showcase called “The Sunday Night Gig,” held at the Calvary Chapel in Diamond Bar. He and Jiro, with whom he collaborates on “Gig” tapings, next plan to edit a trailer based on their footage of a recent Calvary Chapel appearance by noted Christian rockers Cutlass, Disciple, Stellar Kart and Esterline. Though life is busy for David, who is shooting for a 4.0 in school in hopes of getting into USC film school, it is certainly never boring. At 16, he already speaks like a seasoned and hardworking fixture of the film industry. “I might do another contest before the year’s end,” he said. But I’m really going to try to get the script for my feature nailed down, and work on getting funding for that.” Life’s not all about film, however, something the young workaholic occasionally has to remind himself. “I try not to have strictly back-to-back projects because I get burned out,” he said. “When I’m done with filming, I relax, hang out with friends and let my creativity reboot.” The next time you boot up your computer, you can visit David’s video blog, on which he describes himself as “an aspiring Christian filmmaker who really wants to connect to audiences in a personal and emotional way and make films that they can truly relate to.” To check out a “gig” and some film’s by this ambitious teen, visit www.youtube.com/user/InTheLunchBox A further profile of budding filmmaker David Reynosa will appear in a subsequent edition of the Courier. —Sarah Torribio |
