The Fountain

The next Steven Spielberg or Stanley Kubrick may be in our midst. UCA film students have been hard at work for the past year, putting finishing touches on films that will be submitted to the UCA Film Festival scheduled for the end of April.

One such student is senior film student Brent Williamson. His film, Ouachita Rising, revolves around the mystery of an overexposed picture. The main character James and a friend find James’ late grandfather’s camera and develop the final role of film. However, the last picture on the film is overexposed and hard to figure out. James knows his grandfather, who was a professional photographer, would not have purposely taken a picture like that. Determined to find out where the last photo was taken, James and his friend go on a unique adventure to discover the location and the truth behind the photo.

Williamson, who co-wrote and directed the film, said it is unique and doesn’t fall into a typical student film storyline.

“I’ve been using the phrase action-drama kind of thing. It’s definitely an adventure kind of thing, but along the way there’s an inner emotional connection for James,” Williamson said. “There’s more than just a happy-go-lucky walk through Arkansas and that’s it.”

Williamson said the idea came when he was in photography class. One of his classmates had an overexposed photo from her Dad’s camera and didn’t know what it was. Williamson said this was the starting idea for this project.

The eight person crew began shooting in February and most of the scenes were shot outside, even during the snow storms.

“The biggest challenge was definitely location,” Williamson said. “We had upwards of 20 scenes and roughly 17 of them take place at locations outside.”

Williamson said he wanted to capture the beauty of Arkansas in the film, shooting at Petit Jean, the Ozark Mountains and areas around Conway and Jasper.

Film features natural scenery of Arkansas

Though the film has a lot of beautiful scenery, Williamson said his favorite part of the film is finding out the shocking secret.

“[My favorite scene is] when you discover what the final photograph is. That’s only because no one’s ever seen it and I’m super excited to show it,” Williamson said. “Every scene we shot we liked more than the previously one.”

Student films will be showcased April 30 at the UCA Film Festival, which is free to students. For more information about the festival, contact the UCA Film Department at 501-450-3162.

Check out the trailer for Ouachita Rising here.