Each year, the Video Production Club at the Dallastown Area high school hosts the “Spring Shorts” film festival and award ceremony.

Wildcat T.V., the student-led T.V. program at Dallastown, held the festival & awards ceremony at Dallastown high school’s auditorium on the evening of Thursday, May 18.

Both high and middle school students from across York county submitted videos to the Spring Shorts film festival.

Budding filmmakers were invited to submit their videos for nomination consideration in any of 15 categories, ranging from best acting, best visual effects, originality, best of festival, and many more.

A full list of the 2017 Spring Shorts nominees can be found here.

Susquehannock’s very own Matthew Schiffbauer was nominated for seven different awards including best visual effects, best sound design, originality, best story & writing, best directing, best editing, and best of festival.

Schiffbauer submitted two videos that received nominations: “I Have an Idea” and “Replica.”

The nominees and their supporters gathered in the auditorium of the Dallastown Area high school on the evening of Thursday, May 18.

Before the mock-oscar trophies were awarded, 25 of the 60 overall submitted videos were presented by Wildcat T.V. to the audience; videos ranged from classic short films to documentaries, music videos, and everything in between.

Senior and friend of Schiffbauer Zak Kettinger attended the award show on Thursday evening.

“I was really blown away with how diverse the nominated videos were. When I showed up, I expected all of the videos to be short films in the way that Matt [Schiffbauer] presents them, but I was pleasantly surprised by stuff like a couple of documentaries and music videos,” said Kettinger.

There was also an audience-selected award that was awarded to the video that garnered the most votes from the audience.

Junior Ethan Schammel also attended the Spring Shorts film festival in support of Schiffbauer.

“The main video [The Golden Rule] that won best of festival had a giant plot hole in the middle and didn’t make much sense whereas matt’s video didn’t have any plot holes and was very funny. I think that, although the video had really good editing, the plot hole kinda brought it down a little bit,” said Schammel.

Schiffbauer ended the night by securing the award for best original concept for his video, “I Have an Idea”, which sees Schiffbauer himself and several friends struggle to come up with an idea for a video.

“Well, my plans for next year’s Spring Shorts is to do multiple different films, ranging anywhere from drama to comedy. I have a bunch of small ideas for what I would want to do for those films, however, it’s up in the air about how much work I can actually get done before next year. I felt like this year it was a learning experience on what I can do to both benefit my filmmaking skills as well as what it takes to be nominated in other categories such as visual effects or sound design or cinematography,” said Schiffbauer.

For information about next year’s Spring Shorts Film Festival, take a look at the Dallastown video production program’s website and the Spring Shorts twitter page.