Lights, camera, action. Tonight is the big night. Months of late nights with what should be a lethal amount of coffee coursing through your veins and months of enduring technical setbacks interrupting filming, have all led to this very moment.

Walking into the building 13 auditorium, your heart races with anticipation but also with anxiety. Questions fly through your brain at lightning-fast speeds.

“Are they going to like it? Is it good enough? What if nobody claps? What if I completely missed the mark?”

Then a commanding sound immediately quiets the insatiable self-cannibalization of your own anxiety.

Microphone feedback plays for a moment before the announcer welcomes the audience to this semester’s film festival.

Showcasing once a semester and hosted by the Mt. SAC film club, the event is where students and non-students alike can share their passion for cinema by submitting their own short films to showcase the skills they’ve developed in class and on their own.

What feels like hours passing by as each film is played, the lights dim, and your anxiety only intensifies.

“Wolfie,” “Veil,” “The Magician II,” and so many more appear on screen, creating a sense of time slowing as the projector screen illuminates once more with your submission.

In the end, as the lights spring back to life, everyone claps and suddenly, it was all worth it.

This story isn’t a unique one. Is it exaggerated? Absolutely. But it still rings true for the directors who attended the spring 2025 Mt. SAC film festival.

The movies mentioned in the opener weren’t made up either. “Wolfie”, “Veil” and “The Magician II” were all films that stood out for their qualities.

Starting with “The Magician II,” as the name implies, it’s the second in “The Magician,” series with the first film being shown at the fall 2024 film festival. Written and directed by Alexis Garcia and Alejandro Valencia, a duo of 18-year-old film majors.

Last semester, the two found the film club through the Join-a-Club event and joined it without a second thought. When they were told they’d have the opportunity to make short films, they were excited but had no idea where to start.

“We went looking through our characters and well, we just chose the easiest one, “The Magician,” Valencia said. “In the beginning it was sort of rough because we didn’t really have any help. It was originally just going to be us two then our two other friends decided to help us out, including my cousin.”

With a small crew of people now backing the two of them, Valencia and Garcia brought their vision of an overconfident vigilante to life through “The Magician I.”

“The Magician II,” picks up in the aftermath of “The Magician I.” The main villain, The Yellow, has left and begun plotting his revenge on The Magician while The Magician trains and continues his work as a vigilante crime fighter.

At the film’s climax, The Magician and several other heroes work together to bring down The Yellow. Just before they can do anything about it however, the police show up and scare
everyone off.

Throughout the whole movie, their love and passion for the action and comedy genres is left on full display for the viewers to see. Even outside of the film itself, the cast and crew wanted to hang posters to help advertise their project. However, when asked if they wanted the film festival to become a bigger thing, the answer was yes.

“I think it’d be cool if it was a bigger event,” Valencia said.

“Yeah definitely, it’d be great for it to reach more people,” Garcia added. “I feel like a lot of people would go to a bigger film festival event. I feel like it’d make more people reach out to people who want to act or make their own films. It’d sort of expand the film club.”

With “The Magician II,” receiving as much love as it has from viewers both at the festival and after it was posted on YouTube, it was clear that there was a demand for the last installment of the series, “The Magician III.” “The Magician III,” will probably just be the end of the Magician,” Valencia said. “We do have ideas for our other characters that are seen in Magician like Captain Canada and his teammate. The Luchador and the detectives too.”

It wasn’t only “The Magician II,” that was shown at the film festival. So many others were given a space to shine on the big screen and “Veil” is no different.

“Veil,” is a horror film written and directed by Chance Grauso, a 24-year-old film and tv major. It follows the main character Gabriel, as he’s trying to cope with the death of his girlfriend Fia.

Desperate to contact her again, Gabriel stumbles upon his friend who is using this AI Ouija board. Later when he gets home, he turns on his computer and navigates to the website where all hell breaks loose.

The film itself is a personal one for Grauso. After the passing of his grandfather and the death of one of his favorite directors, what started as an in-class assignment, became something so much more.

“I wrote it shortly after my grandfather had passed,” Grauso said. “I was writing about that, and I was thinking about the concept of death and specifically the feeling that you get when someone passes of like, what would someone do to see or speak to a dead loved one.”

Death wasn’t his only inspiration however, he mentioned how it was written around the time the use of AI was blowing up.

“I was thinking about AI and stuff,” Grauso said. This was when AI was getting really really good. You started seeing AI posts more frequently, and had to question is that AI? That’s kind of scary so I thought it was a good horror writing concept to use.”

“Veil,” is the product of a long journey through the process of filmmaking.

Grauso’s love for the horror genre bleeds through the screen and his inspirations are subtly put on display for the viewers to analyze. With parts of the film pulling from directions like David Lynch, it was obvious.

“Robert Edgars, David Lynch and John Carpenter,” Grauso said. I would say those are some of my bigger inspirations when it comes to horror.”

Grauso’s journey as a student also heavily impacted the making of this film. After quitting an old job and getting a new one then quickly realizing he hated it, an epiphany stuck him, and he realized that he had to go back to school.

“I initially thought I wouldn’t be a good fit for post-high school, college and stuff, but I’ve actually done pretty well,” he said. “That’s sort of what pushed me to do this. For a long time, I just did general eds online. But it was last year, that or two years ago when I went on campus the first time. I met all those people I’ve worked with, my cast and crew through classes. That’s sort of how I got here and I’m so happy I did because I definitely wouldn’t have made this if I didn’t go back to school.”

Another major point of why Grauso got the film made was his experience at last semester’s film festival. After seeing promotional materials on social media and around campus, his heart was set on attending and that only emboldened him to push harder to make his first film.

“I really wanted to go and talk to directors,” he said. “It was at the end of last fall I was really pushing myself, telling myself I really gotta make something. Meeting people and talk to directors was really my goal which is why I encouraged it at this film festival. If I didn’t go to last semester’s film festival, I probably wouldn’t have made ‘Veil’.”

When Chance went to the last film festival, he didn’t walk out empty handed. He completed his goal in talking to directors. One particular director he built a close bond with over their shared love of the horror genre was Mike Orona.

Orona, a 35-year-old film major from Mt. SAC is also the director of “Wolfie,” a horror film that is quite reminiscent of “Childsplay” or “Annabelle.”

Growing up in the East LA and Hollywood area, he was constantly exposed to new films hitting local cinemas. His grandma would regularly take him to the theaters to watch new releases.

“Every time we would go watch a movie, she would make me stay for the credits,” Orona said. That really inspired me to be the behind-the-scenes kind of guy. I always made that a tradition of mine.”

When he was 12, Orona shared that his mother gifted him his first video recorder. From there, he would go around and film small things with his cousins or his parents and grandmother. In his older years, he learned photography and would be a photographer at conventions like Comic Con. He would also play in various bands and would use his video and photography skills to shoot the music videos for his bands.

All of these skills culminated when a few years ago, he submitted his first short film to a film festival. By this point he had made a couple shorts, but this was the first one he had ever submitted.

“About five or six years ago, they had this little festival online called the fifteen second horror film con,” Orona said.

“They wanted you to take the concept of a horror film and we had to break it down into a 15 second short. So, I did that, and I made this film called ‘That One.’ So, I entered that into the festival and ended up getting second place there.”

That experience proved to be Orona’s entry into publishing his work somewhere. Despite being out of school for a while, it was this moment that helped him to make that decision to go back to school and meet similarly minded people.

As mentioned previously, Orona met Grauso at last semester’s film festival where the two hit it off. So well in fact, that when production on “Veil,” started, one of the first people Grauso picked to be on crew was Orona himself, even offering him the role of the first assistant director.

“Chance came up to me after the film festival and he goes, ‘Hey I really like your movie, it was really inspiring. I haven’t made anything, but I have this film I’m sitting on that I’d really like to make. I’d love to send you the script and get any tips that would help me out,’” Orona said.

From there, Grauso sent him the script for “Veil,” and Orona sent back some of his feedback on it. While he wouldn’t call it exactly a mentoring role, he wanted to help him out because at the time, Grauso hadn’t made anything.

Through this partnership, Orona was able to connect Grauso with several people to help bring “Veil” to life.

Although Orona spent time working on “Veil,” ideas for his own projects would still come and go. The concept for “Wolfie” was no different. The character Wolfie is played by a doll Orona got as a gift, though one night, it took on a different role than a cuddly friend.

“I hadn’t planned to make this movie at all,” Orona said. “I had this nightmare about it, and it was kinda like in the movie with how it was chasing me. So, I woke up one day and I’m like that was weird, but you know what, that was a pretty cool idea. I wonder if I can make something out of it.”

From there, “Wolfie,” was born.

Wasting no time, Orona contacted his trusted friend and production assistant Aylin Ruiz, and after they put together a shot list and fleshed out a treatment for the film, together they set out to film the movie at his house over a couple days.

“We kind of just came to my house and filmed it,” Orona said. “We did it over a couple Sundays. We kind of let it play out as it went.”

However, due to the small scale of the production, Orona struggled with deciding on whether or not to ask one of his acting friends to step in to play the role of the main character or taking on the mantle himself. Ultimately, he made the call to play the role.

“I’ve been doing some acting and it’s about me,” Orona said. “I’m playing an exaggerated version of me so why not give it a shot?”

After the film festival, Orona had a couple projects in mind he wanted to be a part of. One already in post-production, an anthology series and after all the positive feedback from “Wolfie,” maybe even a “Wolfie II.”

“We have this film I want to hopefully shoot in Oct.,” Orona said. “It’ll probably be the biggest film I’ve ever done. It’s called “In a Single Moment.” It’s kind of my love letter to the whole goth club scene, mainly the Chicano goth club scene that I was a part of for a long time.”

Even though all four of the people mentioned had different stories of how they got to share their visions on the silver screen, the outcome was the same. They worked together with their peers to produce something they were passionate about.

These stories together aren’t just personal accounts. They’re a testament to the hard work and dedication these people have. Sinking who knows how many hours into a project solely because you’re passionate about it is deeply admirable.

So, as the lights begin to sparkle back to life and the projector is shut off. The anxiety and anticipation that once had a firm grasp on your thoughts had subsided. The feeling of pride and satisfaction that you gain knowing you did a stellar job creating your film is only reinforced as you spend time talking amongst your peers, hearing their cheers of praise.

And as you walk out of the auditorium, one thought flashes through your mind like lightning.

It was all worth it.