Sterling native making his first short film
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| Anthony Mascorro, 36, a 1995 Sterling High School grad, has written and directed a 30-minute film titled "Wednesday with Anna" that he plans to show on the film festival circuit, then post online for all to see. He said he was surprised and gratified by all the people in his hometown, many of whom barely knew him, who donated to his project. (Submitted) |
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STERLING – Anthony Mascorro always has liked the movies.
What appeals to him is not just going to a theater to see a movie, but what goes into making it.
“I like narratives. Dramatic narratives, I think, are interesting,” said the 36-year-old Sterling native. “Why it works, when it works and why it doesn’t work. I like being around it, I like watching it, participating and making it.”
Mascorro, son of Nef and Cathy Mascorro, now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. He graduated from Sterling High School in 1995 and attended a few local colleges before graduating with a film degree from Columbia College in Chicago in 2000 and moving to New York.
Now he’s a freelance film editor who wrote and directed a 30-minute short film titled “Wednesday with Anna.” The narrative film “follows 25-year-old Sam through one day as he pursues Anna, a college student he met at the library, who is now dating his brother, Roy.”
The movie was filmed entirely in Brooklyn.
“For the first few years (after graduating), I didn’t want to work in film production,” he said. “By the time I finished in Columbia ... you study something, by the time you’re done you’re so sick of it.”
So he worked odd jobs for a few years and even dabbled in graduate school before he began working at 826NYC, an educational and arts nonprofit that provides after-school tutoring.
That’s how he reconnected with the arts, which led him to filmmaking. “Wednesday with Anna” is his first production “where it was operated like a real production.”
On Dec. 4, Mascorro launched a campaign to raise $5,000 through the fundraising site kickstarter.com and 24 days later, he reached his goal.
He said he was amazed by the support he received from people in his hometown.
“I only directly asked one person who I knew from Sterling,” Mascorro said. “He emailed some people and put it on his Facebook. A lot of people I didn’t know that well gave. It was really nice.”
One of those people was Rich McNinch, co-owner of Air Play Sports in downtown Sterling. McNinch and Mascorro went to high school together.
“I’d recently gotten onto kickstarter and was getting their emails already,” said McNinch, who had donated to other kickstarter.com projects before. “If I can help out complete strangers, I should help out friends.”
McNinch, who donated $25, said he liked the concept of the short film.
“I knew he was into filmmaking,” McNinch said. “I know that it’s often hard. So many things die before they are even written. I wanted to see it through and see it when it’s done.”
The $5,000 will be used for post-production work, which includes sound mixing and design, hiring a film colorist and creating or buying the rights to music, he said.
He hopes to be finished by April. His plan is to submit it to film to festivals, many of which don’t accept movies that have been shown anywhere else. That means he won’t be able to put it online until later this year.
After the festivals are over, he’ll post it on public video sites such as YouTube, so people can watch it there, he said.
Making movies is what brings Mascorro joy, he said.
“I just like doing this,” he said. “I’ll just keep doing it. The idea behind making this short, you have something that you’ve made, hopefully you can show it to somebody who is in a position to help you make another one.”
About the film
Click here to find out more about "Wednesday with Anna," Anthony Mascorro's 30-minute film.
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