Student short film to be viewed Thursday

By Kirstie Hettinga
The Collegian

Sex, drugs, murder and suicide are the key words on a poster for “Sick Sad Little World,” a short film written and directed by Fresno State theatre major Johnny Soto.

Soto was inspired when he first heard the lyrics of Incubus’ “Sick Sad Little World.”

“This has been something that has been in my head for more than two years,” Soto said.

After two years of thinking of various ideas, Soto sat down to write a script. He used the Internet to spread the word of his ongoing project.

“A lot of hype got built up on MySpace and people wanted to know what it was,” Soto said.

Soto asked Michael Oldham, a fellow theatre major to act in the piece and asked Fresno City College sophomore Ashley Hyatt to be involved as well. Hyatt and Soto met while performing in another short film, “Date Night.”

“Sick Sad Little World” has some explicit content, but the content did not prevent Hyatt from helping out.

“He showed me the script before, it was something I had never done before, but he made it real comfortable,” Hyatt said.

While Hyatt said she liked the script it was Soto’s work that drew her to the project. “I trust him, he’s a fun guy and he’s just very creative and the fact that his name was on it was what really drew me to it,” she said.

Mass communication and journalism junior Bryan Harley was also drawn to the project by Soto. Soto acted in Harley’s short film, “The Dingle.”

Harley also jumped on the opportunity to work on the piece because of its unique genre.

“It’s kind of like a music video/narrative/experimental short,” Harley said.

While Harley shot the footage, Soto edited the project himself. “When I saw the final cut of it, I was pretty impressed,” Harley said.

Soto’s work will be shown Thursday, May 4 in Speech Arts 163 from 6 – 8 p.m.

Soto said he did this project because he had to. “Everbody asks me ‘are you doing this for a class? Are you doing this for something?’ No, it’s just for me,” he said.

Soto’s work can also be seen on May 11th at the First Annual Fresno State Student Film Festival.

“I’m going to try to spread it as much as possible, because I am really proud of it,” Soto said.

The First Annual Fresno State Student Film Festival begins at 6 p.m. in the Peters Educational Center.

Harley, who is the president of the B# Video and Film Club, helped establish the film festival. He said the festival was created so people could “see what Fresno State students are capable of in the area of video.”

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