Jeana-Dee Allen
The State News
Jeana-Dee Allen
The State News
Jeana-Dee Allen
The State News
High school senior focuses on filmmaking early in life
Jacob Mendel's maturity goes far beyond the massive gray briefcase he carries to class.
The Okemos High School senior said he hardly felt out of place in a 300-level MSU film course last semester, partially because it's always been easy to befriend people older than him. At 18 years old, Mendel knows he's more mature than many of his peers - especially when it comes to filmmaking - but he's the last person to brag about his talent.
Mendel's short films have been featured at festivals in several states and the United Kingdom, and have won first-place awards at contests in Ann Arbor and Chicago.
Two of his films will be shown Sunday in the Lake Michigan Film Competition's Student Short Film Program, a part of the East Lansing Film Festival. The LMFC features and gives cash awards to films either produced, filmed or financed in the states that border Lake Michigan.
Mendel said he's most proud of the two films he has in the competition - "The Writer" and "The Madness of Existence," each clocking in at about 15 minutes.
Both films were done during Mendel's independent study in high school, where he makes one film per month, each month using a different genre. "The Writer" is in the style of '60s surrealism, and "Madness" is based on the French New Wave movement.
Because he's currently focusing on techniques from specific areas of film, he said everything is sort of "making fun of Hollywood."
Nick Hurwitch, journalism senior and director of the Lake Michigan Film Competition, pointed out that even though Mendel is imitating these genres, he's still adding his own voice to them.
"I can tell from having seen his films from the last few years that he works on his craft," Hurwitch said. "He's trying to improve, trying to see what worked."
Matt Ottinger, Mendel's independent study adviser and the telecommunications coordinator for Okemos Public Schools, said Mendel has "a pretty specific area of film that he prefers."
Several of Mendel's films are in black and white, and "Madness" is mostly in French with English subtitles.
"Madness" uses an omniscient narrator who tells the story of three profoundly different characters who are somehow interconnected.
"The Writer," which Mendel co-wrote with friend and classmate Brad Detjen, uses a lot of warped music and trippy effects.
The film, about a writer's crazy mind trip, was "more of a visual experiment," Mendel said.
Mendel's maturity and natural talent have impressed many who have seen his work.
"In addition to just being a smart kid, he just has a vaster knowledge of film," Hurwitch said.
ELFF director Susan Woods, who has known Mendel since he was in elementary school, chose him to participate on the eight-person selection committee for the Lake Michigan Film Competition portion of the festival. The committee watches film submissions, decides what will be shown and judges the final films. Because of his entries, Mendel couldn't participate in judging the student portion of the competition, but Woods said she thought he would benefit from the experience.
Woods said she chose Mendel for the committee because it would "help him to get a perspective of what people look at when they're making films and when we're selecting films."
She said the biggest difference between Mendel and other filmmakers his age is that he's "very mature and cosmopolitan. He makes allusions to literature and has sort of a more sophisticated look."
Ottinger said he tried to get Mendel to do things out of his interest area, but he instead adapted the different genres to fit his vision.
"I wanted him to do a musical because it's so completely unlike him," Ottinger said.
Mendel returned with a "dark, moody musical with Tom Waits lyrics," he said. "Very much the way Jacob Mendel would make a musical."
When Mendel was in a TV production class in middle school, his teacher told Ottinger to watch for him.
"That's the thing about this sort of field," Ottinger said. "If you're interested in making movies, you get interested at a very early age."
Mendel said he doesn't know where he got his interest in film.
"It just sort of happened," he said, but thinks it might have come from his constant curiosity, which has been a part of his personality from a young age.
In baby pictures, for example, Mendel said he is often holding one of his hands up in the air.
"I would stare at my hand for hours," he said, because he was fascinated with it.
When Mendel first got the idea to film a movie, he spent time at Barnes & Noble reading books about video editing. He then downloaded editing software and got a cheap camera to make his first "real deal" film, "Requiem for Caffeine."
The film was a satire of "Requiem for a Dream," but about an addiction to caffeine instead of drugs.
Mendel's defining moment came after he rented out a theater in Celebration Cinema to premiere the film and sold tickets at school.
"This is pure euphoria. This is what I want to do," he said he thought after the show. "And then it was back to the drawing board."
After "Requiem," Mendel went on to write "Oasis," the story of two high school kids from the suburbs who accidentally create an anti-depressant. The drug spreads like wildfire until they realize that everyone in suburbia is too happy, but they're still miserable.
Ottinger was impressed with the film, which Mendel made before starting his independent study.
"Any time you see a student put something together of that quality, it just knocks your socks off," Ottinger said. "There are very, very few students who can pull something like that off."
Looking back on "Oasis," Mendel said he's not too crazy about it anymore, partly because it's so "angsty."
He knows his work has improved - mostly in technical quality, but also in subject matter.
"I'm hoping there's some maturity," Mendel said. "I feel weird saying that about myself."
His plans for next year are unsure - he's been accepted to the University of Michigan and is waiting to hear back from New York University and several other schools.
Mendel might end up getting a liberal arts education, then go to school for more technical film training, but "ideally, I'd like to be involved in filmmaking," he said.
Ottinger said that in the 15 years he's been working in the district, he's had only five or six students who have been like Mendel, and all of them are working professionally in some aspect of television or film.
"He knows that if he really wants to work in film, he'll be working in film," Ottinger said. "The talent goes without saying, but you have to be dedicated to fulfilling your vision."