MSU alumnus and former basketball player Keenan Wetzel has always had a passion for filmmaking.
“At 6 or 7 years old I was watching a lot of films with my family and I kind of decided that it was a really cool idea that there are people that live in this world and create these films that we watch,” Wetzel said.
In his time at MSU, he was able gain experience and help make films such as "(313) Choices," which will be one of the feature films at this year's East Lansing Film Festival.
He also filmed a movie titled "The Cager" which premiered last February.
During the making of "(313) Choices," Wetzel was one of six directors who each had to shoot scenes over the course of one weekend.
The group began filming last Spring and Wetzel began shooting his story after the basketball season ended.
"(313) Choices" originated as a play in the Department of Theatre and was later made into a film by Media Sandbox. The film tells six different stories in the form of vignettes.
David Wheeler, Media Sandbox director and teaching specialist was one of the creators of the "(313) Choices" film.
“We got producers on board and left it totally up to the students, so the producers chose the directors and the directors chose the cinematographers,” Wheeler said.
Wetzel had the last vignette to shoot and did so at a number of locations.
“His was probably the most difficult to shoot because it had a lot of location changes and that’s very hard over a three day weekend,” Wheeler said.
"(313) Choices" will be one of the feature films to be shown in this year's East Lansing Film Festival. It will be shown Friday, Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. in Wells Hall.
“The 313 film project was a very unique experience from my college career that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else in terms of making a feature length film,” Wetzel said.
As of late, Wetzel has been busy with many other film projects. He is currently developing a feature length film and he is a writer and director for Eightfold Marketing and Creative.
As for advice for aspiring filmmakers, Wetzel said to enjoy the filmmaking journey.
“My advice would be don’t worry about the end result of the project all of the time, it’s more about the journey of doing it,” Wetzel said. “Filmmaking is not only a job, it’s a hard job that everyone wants.”
