Tucked away from the bustling crowds, established artists and a high-priced Art scene that has made downtown Phoenix's monthly First Fridays Art walk immensely popular, a group of young filmmakers is paying its dues.
The ASU Filmmaker's Association made its fifth appearance in the Art-walk festivities Friday, screening the short films of several students in the new Residential Commons on the ASU Downtown campus.
The films included a mix of old and new material, much of which was produced by students studying toward the new Film and Media Studies degree through the Herberger College of Fine Arts.
The latest installment saw the premier of pre-film freshman John Murphy's "The Suburban Ninja", a short piece that took about two hours to make, and featured a battle scene set to music from Air Supply, drawing rave reviews from AFA members in attendance.
While the enthusiasm among AFA members hasn't been lacking, attendance has, pre-film sophomore Andy Hendrix said.
"This time, there was probably twenty people or more, which is more than all of the other [months] combined," Hendrix said.
AFA member Michael Tapia has fronted the effort to increase attendance, creating promotional Facebook and MySpace groups and helping to hang posters and distribute flyers on campus.
But the location of the group's venue, nearly a mile from First Fridays' main drag Roosevelt Street, has made drawing large crowds nearly impossible, Tapia said.
"A handful of people came," Tapia said. "But I think people don't want to walk down here."
"If you lived in New York, you could walk it. People in Arizona don't like to walk," Tapia added.
The group paid $250 to have its location printed on maps provided by First Friday sponsor ArtLink, but it didn't help much, Tapia said.
"If we were right on Roosevelt, we'd probably get a lot of people," Tapia said. "But because you have to get the map, you have to look at the map, you have to understand the map … people don't understand maps."
The idea to move closer to Roosevelt Street, and perhaps even project films onto the side of a building have been proposed, but the cost of doing so could be too much for the AFA to bear, Tapia said.
A potential rift between the non-profit AFA and the established professional artists may also hinder the number of visitors to their screenings, Tapia said.
"It seems like First Fridays is all about not only exhibiting your Art, but also making a little bit of money for the artists," Tapia said.
While assimilating itself into the surrounding community has been difficult, the efforts have been altogether worth it, AFA supporter Don Ingels said.
"The number one benefit, in my mind, is giving the students in the film production program a venue to show their films to a real audience," Ingels said. "For film, it's important to have a much wider viewpoint than just the classroom."
Ingels, a former ASU student, invested several thousand dollars in a new sound system and many hours of his own time in making the transition to the downtown campus smoother.
"The time commitment is bigger for all of us, more than the financial," Ingels said.
AFA's involvement in First Fridays isn't just beneficial to film students, but to furthering the development of the 'New American University' as well, Ingels said.
"Michael Crow has a viewpoint that ASU should be integrated with the community, and I just thought this was one small way to do that type of thing," Ingels said.
The expanded presence of ASU's downtown campus will help to further the integration process, Ingels said.
"As ASU becomes even more recognizable downtown, that will help draw people down here," Ingels said.
However, the lack of student involvement on a University-wide level still stands in the way of the AFA and other groups' efforts, Tapia said.
"It's still 'Apathetic State University' down here," Tapia added.
The AFA is committed to screening at the current location through May, plenty of time to build more excitement for the monthly events, Ingles said.
"I think that we've had a decent start. We definitely have a long way to go."
Reach the reporter at: nathaniel.lipka@asu.edu.
