Arts & Entertainment
Merokean Wins Big at LI International Film Expo
Jill Schissel's film "Mildred Richards" takes home five major awards.
Homegrown Merokean Jill Schissel won awards for best student film and best actress in a short film at this year's Long Island International Film Expo Awards held last weekend at the Bellmore Theater.
Schissel's film "Mildred Richards" has a unique angle. The film's audio is from radio plays produced in the 1940s, set to modern black and white film of actors acting out the visual elements of the story.
"Winning at the Long Island International Film Expo is amazing for me," said Schissel, a Calhoun High School grad. "I grew up on Long Island, and when it came time to pick a location, we shot on Long Island. So this is really like a homecoming for me and it's nice to have my work recognized here."
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Schissel founded Radio Film Pictures with the goal of bringing the "golden age of radio to the silver screen."
"A lot of the radio stations did throw out these old plays in dumpsters and didn't think they was any value to them," she said. "I personally think these are wonderful stories that should be preserved."
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Kat Wisener plays Broadway actress Mildred Richards in the film. Wisener won the Best Actress in a Short Film Award. She said acting in the movie was a new experience.
"It's a different challenge to work with," she said. "As a performer, you like to think you're bringing a character to life. In this film you are, but just in a different way. There's a certain framework that you need to deal with. There's the audio that exists, and you have to work with that...we just studied it and learned every little nuance, whenever the character spoke or breathed. Anything like that you had to learn it and incorporate that into your performance. So you had to come up with the visual to go with that audio."
"Mildred Richards" also won the Triple Play Tech Award, consisting of best cinematography, best editing and best art directing. Her prize was a $5,000 post production service voucher from Red Lab Digital towards future films.
"The quality of Jill's work along with the proposal for her next project, made this prize the best fit for her," said Jim Cook from the Long Island International Film Expo.
Schissel plans to continue making these radio movies with her next film entitled "Fall Girl."
