PitchNic, one of Spy Hop Productions’ most exciting programs, returns for its 23rd edition this year and this year’s class of young Utah filmmakers is looking to build on a legacy where more than 95% of films that have been produced in the program have gone on to be screened at and win awards at film festivals in the U.S. and international venues which highlight short films.
The PitchNic film program at Spy Hop Productions has succeeded because one important lifelong lesson for students is the instrumental value of pushing their creative and perceptive boundaries to find their ideal voices as a filmmaker. The premiere of four new PitchNic shorts will take place on Nov. 6, with screenings beginning at 7 p.m. in the Jeanné Wagner Theatre at the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts. For more information, see the Spy Hop Productions website.
This year’s quartet of short films is among the most enterprising in recent years. While narratives fall naturally within the coming-of-age genre, the treatments by these young filmmakers open up new paths. One offers a Vietnamese-American story, based on actual events in the director’s family, which touches upon suicide and the courage to speak up about one’s grief. The other narrative, filmed in some of Carbon County’s open landscapes, spins classic tropes of adventure as two young women embark on a bike trip. Meanwhile, the two documentary shorts are especially timely. One examines the reasons for why three young Hispanic men, for various reasons, are enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps. The other blends fiction and nonfiction elements in exploring the ways that three individuals at various points on the autism spectrum are transcending the barriers that alienate or isolate them, in order for others to be more sensitive and to comprehend what neurodivergence actually means.
The students pitch the final projects to the public for funding during the annual spring benefit for Spy Hop. They spend the summer and early fall shooting, editing and completing a polished short film. It is at that point when all of the students, regardless of whatever project they are working on, bond and support each other. Perseverance also is one of Spy Hop Productions’ most cherished values. In the program, they experience many of the same barriers and problems professionals in the movie industry confront continuously in their work.
“This year’s students became friends early in the process and made a community with each other, helping each other to realize the ambitions of their projects,” Jon Nelson, PitchNic mentor said. adding that he is “super proud” of each of the four projects.
PitchNic students always strive to elevate the already rigorous standards set by their predecessors, as many of the short films eventually make the film festival circuit and more than a few have garnered awards. From last year’s PitchNic films, Hija was recently awarded an honorable mention at Reale Film Festival in Italy, and garnered an award at the Power24 Film Festival in South Africa. Hija (Abigail Tello, director; Olga Pedraza-Cano, director of photography: Katelyn Neal, producer) is a nonfiction film about Latina daughters facing family guilt and pressures on the journey from home toward independence. Also, gaining attention at festivals is A “Haunted” House (Oliver Day, director; Robbie Altman & Arthur Cummins, directors of photography; Margaret Plumb, producer; Jay Tracy, production designer). It is a narrative about a documentary film student who follows two boys and their uninvited social-media-obsessed friend as they go on an unforgettable night of ghost hunting.
Some of last year’s students are expanding their interests in film. Day, the director of A “Haunted” House, is now in the highly esteemed Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film & Media Arts program. Riley Hastings and Katelyn Neal are now PitchNic peer mentors, film students at Salt Lake Community College and are working on several film projects. Robbie Altman is studying game design and political science at the University of Utah’s Asia Campus in South Korea, and recently completed a two-day shoot for a school promo video. Jay Tracy is set to start a bachelor’s degree program in filmmaking and is planning to launch a branding project.
The 2025 class of PitchNic films include the following:
Happy Thoughts (director: Tommy Pepper) is PitchNic’s first fiction short with stories about Vietnamese-Americans and, in fact, two of the director’s brothers are involved with the film. The story is about a senior in high school, with three speech champion titles to his name, who is set to compete in his last tournament before graduation. However, a sudden, tragic death in his family compounds his emotions not only in trying to focus on the competition but also about the uncomfortable struggles of expressing the pain of the grief he keeps silent.
Pepper based the story on his family’s grieving experiences after an uncle took his own life. Along with the support of local Vietnamese businesses and the community,the short features his brother, Will, who is a stand-up comedian, as well as Ethan, who provides the soundtrack. “The main character’s story is ironic because he’s such a gifted debater, but he cannot speak about the emotions of losing a younger brother who has taken his own life.” In addition to the funds the production team raised when the students pitched the final projects to the public for funding during the annual spring benefit for Spy Hop, the Happy Thoughts crew raised an additional $2,500. The film will include a QR code for viewers to contribute to Promise2Live.
Working with Pepper on the film were Marlo Haleck, director of photography; Kate Callister, production designer and Missy Annalise Lee, producer. Haleck said that Pepper’s script opened up possibilities of juxtaposing colors to highlight the contrasts in emotions that are portrayed in the film.
Bicycles (director; Marilyn Heaner) is a two-hander narrative short which highlights the bonds that can be made in Utah’s natural landscapes. Set in the summer of 2002, this coming-of-age film is about an adventurous photographer and a writer who has yet to find her grounding in the outdoors, as they embark on a bike trip. Meanwhile, they also must confront the realities of adult responsibilities, which include meeting deadlines and deciding how to overcome the stress of setbacks and promises that fall short of expectations.
Inspired by the genre of coming-of-age films such as Stand by Me, The Goonies and The Sandlot, which prominently featured young male characters, Heaner set her narrative about two young women with promising talents who also are finding their way to overcome their own doubts about their capabilities as they make the transition to adulthood.
Joining Heaner are Vik Gale, director of photography; Agatha Hunnicutt, producer, and Fernando Cardenas, production designer. For location filming, the team achieved ambitious logistical goals during a four-day trip where they went to Helper, Utah, well known for its robust support of arts and culture, and coordinated their schedule with the Carbon County Office of Tourism. Heaner turned to her father, Bill, a well-known Utah guitarist, singer and songwriter, to produce the score.
Unfortunate Son (director: Phoenix Ballesteros) is a documentary short about three young Hispanic men in their teens and their decision to pursue enlisting with the U.S. Marine Corps. With the three subjects, the short summarizes the three most common motivations that inspire young Hispanic men to join the Marines: economic stability and long-term community viability, opportunities to enlarge their skill sets for careers and personal challenges.
Among the subjects Ballesteros and Sacha Arias, producer, selected for the short was Julian, whom the director has known since high school. Aliyah Peña is the director of photography and editor for the short. He and his partner became parents while they were in school so his decision is based on ensuring that he can provide a stable financial livelihood for his young family. Likewise, Antonio, who also comes from a working class family background and whom Ballesteros knew from a math class at school, is hoping to expand his career potential but also is trying to resolve uncertainties about the challenges he would like to pursue. Meanwhile, Mateo, who is part of an immigrant family, is hoping that by joining the Marines, that will give his mother a less complicated path to becoming a naturalized citizen.
The topic is timely. Hispanics comprise nearly one-quarter of the total number of active duty Marine Corps members, which underscore how military service has become a prominent outlet for Hispanics, who are born here as well as those who are immigrants, to highlight their bona fides as an American.
To achieve as much candor as possible in the interviews, Ballesteros and Arias talked about how important it was to establish an empathetic production set because all three subjects face different types of vulnerability in deciding whether or not to enlist with the Marines. Also, Ballesteros explained how the process of making the film softened her anti-military sentiments, as she and her team interviewed the three young men. “It really opened my eyes as a documentary filmmaker,” she said. The film’s soundtrack also tips its hat to a song familiar to many Mexicans: El Rey, composed by José Alfredo Jiménez but made particularly famous in a cover version sung by Vicente Fernández.
Whinnie (director: Jamie Jean) takes an intriguing hybrid approach, blending classic documentary elements of on-camera interviews with fictional elements. The narrative thread for this short is carried by a lonely monster character who puts on a human-like mask and ventures into the world, but hiding behind the mask and meticulously calculating his every move engenders spiraling feelings of exhaustion and fear. Interwoven with this fictional character’s journey are interviews with three individuals who are on the autism spectrum, who share their experiences of navigating their own world when it feels especially alienating and isolating. Whinnie emerges as a tender exploration of identity, vulnerability, and the human desire to be seen.
To achieve the utmost sensitive framing for this innovative approach, Jean worked with Lola Hunter, producer; Kyra King (who also is one of the two actors in Bicycles), production designer, and Munashe Tanjan, who worked variously as director of photography, editor and co-writer of the script. Separately, Jean and Tanjan talked precisely about the mutual respect they had in accommodating the creative expectations of translating Jean’s central ideas to verbalizing them concretely on the pages of the script. Likewise, their three interview subjects covered different age demographics and perspectives to give enough breadth and depth to make the short film as impactful as possible. The hybrid approach is pointed toward a fresh alternative to the outdated and constraining narratives that typically overshadow the sociopolitical conversations about neurodivergence, which often are framed as struggling with ableism and a medical model that conflates multifaceted perspectives.