Fine arts senior Jacob Riggs spotted a flyer in Elliott Hall promoting the first annual Limelight Student Film Festival at Wichita State last year. Riggs partnered with fellow student Harrison Steele and their film went on to win the Grand Jury prize and the Audience Choice at the festival last spring. 

On Nov. 6, the Student Activities Council is holding an informational meeting for students interested in participating in the second annual Limelight Student Film Festival. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in Ahlberg Hall, Room 210. 

SAC sponsors the festival and the SAC arts chair, Jessica Phommachanh, believes it’s an excellent opportunity for WSU students to demonstrate their filmmaking abilities.

“It was an awesome experience,” Riggs, an undergraduate studying graphic design and communications, said. “It was great to see our hard work appreciated.” Riggs’s film, “Am I Art?” documented a student artist, Christian Taylor, through a short journey of his artistic process. Riggs refers to the film as his “brain child.”

 “The goal behind its creation was to provide students with the opportunity to showcase their filmmaking talent to the WSU community,” Phommachanh said. 

Riggs believes SAC “created the event to shine a light on the rising film community in Wichita.”

However, Riggs said the first festival failed to reach a large audience. “It could be improved by publicizing it a lot more,” he said. “Not many people knew about the first one.”

Riggs earned a film certificate from WSU, but to prepare his festival submission he recruited a fellow student to help with filming and editing. “That’s where Harrison came into the picture,” Riggs said. “Harrison did the majority of the shooting, while I was more of a director alongside him. We edited everything together.”