Pedro Pimentel is a simple film maker.
Give the Concord High School senior and president of the school’s film society a camera and some actors and he will spend the day creating something new for the world to see. It’s the way things have been since Pimentel began making independent films six years ago. And next week, you can see some of his latest creations.
Two of Pimentel’s movies, Daniel and The Beauty of the World, will be shown at the second annual Concord High School Film Festival on Feb. 12. The evening event, which begins at 5 p.m. with tickets ($5 each) going on sale at 4 p.m., is expected to last about two hours, with a total of five independent dramas scheduled to be shown. Pimentel’s The Beauty of the World is the featured film.
“I want them to enjoy it. That’s the main thing. That’s really important,” said Pimentel.
Both of the films are on YouTube and have received some attention from the online world. The Beauty of the World has close to 1,500 views, while Daniel was approaching 350 when this story was written. Not too shabby for a young film maker from little old New Hampshire that works with limited equipment and next to nothing for a budget.
“For the two films, I only needed my camera and a voice recorder I have,” said Pimentel.
The film festival will constitute the largest audience to watch one of his films, making Pimentel both nervous and excited. The Beauty of the World, with a running time of close to 15 minutes, will be one of the longest films shown that evening. All five of the films range from four minutes to 15.
Pimentel and his cast of actors shot both films last summer. Daniel, with a running time of six minutes, took just one day to shoot. Pimentel describes it as a film bringing awareness to teenage suicide. Besides shooting it in one day, Pimentel also edited and posted it online before the day was over.
The Beauty of the World was a bit more of a process. Pimentel teamed with Alex Stuart, a 2013 Concord High graduate, to write the screenplay, and spent more than two months perfecting the vampire drama before filming began.
“As we’re writing, we’ll look for the locations and what we want to be in the film,” said Pimentel.
Over three 10-hour days, Pimentel directed his group of teenage bloodsuckers as they tried to avoid the vampire genocide. But that’s all your going to get. There needs to be some surprise when you take your seat in the Christa McAuliffe auditorium Feb. 12.
As excited a film maker as you will find, Pimentel wastes no time with his projects. Even after long days of filming, he would still go home and edit the scenes the same night. Since he didn’t reshoot a single frame, by the end of the third day, The Beauty of the World was complete.
“It was pretty much insane,” said Pimentel. “I just had to play around with what I had.”
With just a camcorder, voice recorder and computer, Pimentel has begun what he hopes will be a long career of making films. But of course he would like to have some bigger budgets in the future. For The Beauty of the World, Pimentel spent around $200 on props and fake blood (and we mean lots of fake blood), but Daniel was made for nothing.
“They usually come from my dreams,” said Pimentel of his film ideas. “But if you compare my original idea to the final product, they’re completely different.”
In addition to having two movies shown, Pimentel is also in charge of the film festival. Talk about an excitement-filled night for a film junkie.
It’s worth it though. Pimentel just wants every film enthusiast to see his. And who knows, maybe down the road we’ll see his name in the credits of some feature length films. Only time will tell where Pimentel’s camcorder will take him.
