The Spartan Film Festival, organized by the UAB Films Committee, was held Feb. 21 in Wells Hall. While there were many entries, only one could win the title of best picture.
An eight-minute documentary titled “Josh Barens: Determined” earned that award. The film tells the story of MSU soccer player Josh Barens, the struggles he’s faced and the ways his strength has inspired not just his teammates, but other students as well.
Journalism and media and information senior Brooks Laimbeer produced the film. Formerly employed by The State News, Laimbeer has played soccer and always had an interest in the sport, which led him to take notice of Barens and begin looking into his history as an athlete.
Production began Sept. 21 and ran rather smoothly, Laimbeer said. Barens was open to the idea for the film, and his parents were very cooperative. They provided childhood photographs and videos, some of which can be seen in the film.
As a producer, Laimbeer was in charge of scheduling and conducting interviews, along with ensuring all other parts of the film came together. This was his first time doing a voice-over for a film, and in order to prepare for the role he studied other sports documentaries.
However, this film wasn’t made alone. He spoke very highly of media and information junior Scott Wasserman.
“I couldn’t have done any of this without Scott,” Laimbeer said.
While Wasserman said the film is a boost to his portfolio, that’s not the only reason he took part in the project. The story itself was full of passion, he said, and Wasserman took it as an opportunity to create a longer film.
In the past Wasserman had been constricted to working on shorter films. This is partly due to the general public and the way attention spans have shifted, he said. He said viewers seem to expect everything to be short and to the point, when sometimes stories require a bit more time.
Wasserman believes they found the “sweet spot” in regards to the length of the eight-minute biopic. It was short enough to hold the audience’s attention, and long enough to tell the story that needed to be told, he said, noting that finding the perfect length can be a bit of a balancing act.
Laimbeer said that he’d like to have gone more in-depth about Barens’ youth career and his childhood.
The film was officially released on YouTube Jan. 14. The night before the release, Laimbeer and Wasserman were finishing up the final edits and brainstorming title ideas. They knew they wanted Josh’s name in the title, but other than that they couldn’t settle on anything specific.
Josh Barens had been described in an interview as determined, provoking the inspiration for the title.
Laimbeer said the film has has diverse appeal.
“People I’ve shown it to have been very interested, (soccer) fans or not fans,” he said.
