Franklin Regional senior earns 4 digital media awards

When Ryan Lucht and fellow Franklin Regional media student Tim Quinn made a short horror film, they never expected that it would lead to meeting horror industry icons such as Tom Savini and Greg Nicotero.

Then again, given the success that the school’s media students have had in recent years at the Robert Morris University Digital Media Arts Consortium Awards, perhaps it’s not a surprise that not only did “The R.I.P.PER” win a DMAC award, but also a first-place award at the George Romero Teen Film Contest last October.

“We wanted to make a Halloween film for school,” said Lucht, 18, of Murrysville. “We decided on sort of an ’80s horror thing that was silly, corny but still scary at the same time.”

The short film, which stars Lucht and Quinn, pits two video-game-playing teens against a monster that makes a visit to their backyard.

It earned Lucht and Quinn a DMAC Digital Cinema Award of Excellence.

The pair decided to submit the film to a contest that was part of the “Romero Lives” celebration last fall.

“A few weeks later, I got an email saying we’d won first place, and the film would be screened,” Lucht said.

The screening took place on an evening where Romero’s documentary about Pittsburgh Steelers legend Franco Harris also was being screened.

“After the screenings, I met Franco Harris and as I was shaking his hand, he asked, ‘Were you the guy who made that short film? I really liked it,’” Lucht said. “It was kind of surreal thinking that a guy who’s been famous in Pittsburgh for the past 50 years was the one who recognized me from a film I made. It sent chills down my spine.”

He also had a chance to meet with Pittsburgh natives and horror mainstays Tom Savini and Greg Nicotero.

Unfortunately, Lucht and fellow Franklin Regional media students no longer have access to the high school production studio they’d normally be frequenting this time of year for schoolwide TV broadcasts and other projects. But it hasn’t stopped them from filming.

“We just filmed the first episode today of what’s going to be our online show,” Lucht said on Thursday evening. “It’s like our regular show except we’re doing it through Google Meet. It’ll be posted to our YouTube page, where we post our daily broadcasts.”

Lucht said he’s sad that he won’t get to say goodbye to friends and media classmates in person, “but we’re still staying in contact, and we’re going to be filming things that hopefully people will be able to see.”

To watch “The R.I.P.PER,” click here. For more about the FR media students’ work, see YouTube.com and search for “FRHSTV.”

Digital media awards

Franklin Regional students weren’t able to attend the Robert Morris University Digital Media Arts Consortium awards, but came away with plenty of hardware.

• Alaina Devlin won “Best in Category” in animation, for her first animation attempt, a short called “Harvest Mouse.”
• Ryan Lucht won “Best in Category” in video-as-art, for “I’m Driving Myself Crazy,” about an artist who locks himself in a room until he comes up with a masterpiece.
• Lucht, Devlin, Tim Quinn, Olivia Ciotti and Joseph Cimbala won “Best in Category” in documentaries for “The Farm,” a piece about Turner Dairy Farm in Penn Hills.
• Lucht and Quinn won a Digital Cinema Award of Excellence for “The R.I.P.PER.”
• The Franklin Regional High School TV crew won an Announcements Award of Excellence for its daily news program.
• Lucht won the Founder’s Award, presented to seniors from the attending schools.