When senior Joe Mook took the stage at the Austin Revolution film festival on Sept. 7 to accept the director’s choice award, he kept his response simple:

 “Thank you guys so much, and are you sure?” 

While his acceptance speech to 400 people bombed, his movie certainly did not.  In Joe’s short film, “Six Shooter” three boys face a life-changing dilemma. It stars three RRHS students: Mook, Andrew Hubbard and Liam Malloy. 2017 graduate Abby Hubbard served as camera woman.

The movie follows the main character Sami (Andrew) and his two friends, Nathan (Liam) and Lewis (Joe). The boys find a gun in an old shack while taking a walk. While inspecting the gun Sami accidentally shoots Lewis and the remaining two boys find themselves in a serious predicament. Tensions rise as the boys try to figure out what to do, but eventually the tension breaks with Sami killing Nathan out of desperation. 

Joe used a Canon EOS Rebel T5 with a slightly scratched EF-S 18-55mm IS II lens

to capture footage for the movie. Liam Malloy edited the film in editing software Final Cut. Joe wrote the script and had a very loose style of directing.

Joe wrote the script, but didn’t originally plan on filming it. That caused some problems during production. The original script used and old house, which was not feasible for the low budget film.

“There’s limitations with what we could do with a budget of $30,” Joe said.

Instead, the team used a shed in the park and hoped no one happened upon them while filming.

“We really just wanted to produce something as our first film and first product,” Joe said.

  In order to be accepted in a film festival Joe had to submit his movie by April 11 and only got notified that he was accepted into the film festival July 12. Joe made the movie in March. There was quite a bit of down time between making the film and receiving his invitation to the festival.

 “The wait was extremely nerve racking,” Joe said

At the film festival, Joe won the directors’ choice for best high school film, which is an award he didn’t even know existed. 

  “It was a fantastic experience,” Joe said, “I got to meet a lot of high school filmmakers and we all got along really well.”

Joe, Liam, and Andrew got to the festival at 9:30 a.m and stayed until 11 p.m

 “We spent most of our time talking to other high school filmmakers and watching their films.” Mook said

Joe received a belt buckle with the revolution logo for his win.