SABINE PASS — So much art has come from tragedy that it’s really no surprise Harvey’s landfall in Texas resulted in numerous expressions of pain, hope, uncertainty and fellowship from artists along the Gulf Coast.

However, it’s a pleasant surprise when this art is recognized on a grand stage for its message and the way through which the artists conveyed it — especially when it was created by young artists looking to express their Harvey-related ordeals.

Sabine Pass High School competed in the University Interscholastic League Young Filmmakers Festival where its film entries — “This is Harvey” and “A Purpose” — ranked fourth in Division 1 Documentary State Finals and fifth in Division 2 Traditional Animation State Finals respectively. “This is Harvey” was also a finalist for the Nobelity Social Impact Award.

This was the first year Sabine Pass entered the competition.

“These were the first and only film submissions for our school, so it was very exciting to see them both placing at the State Meet,” Chris Rector, film and theater teacher, said.

Both short film projects were filmed, edited and directed entirely by the students.

 

Expression through animation

Sabine Pass junior Mia Escareno expressed her Harvey experience through the eyes of her fictional protagonist Max in the clay animation production “A Purpose.”

“I really liked the idea of putting so much focus into one thing,” Escareno said. “It doesn’t involve just one thing; it involves attention to every single aspect.”

In the film, Max attempts to find his titular purpose.

“It was just this little guy trying to find a job,” Escareno said. “Everything he found he failed at. The whole time he was looking for a reason to be there; and, at the end, he found his purpose.

“He found something he was good at; something he didn’t mess up.”

Max ultimately found his purpose in rescuing others during a flood.

“I think Harvey definitely took a toll on the film because the whole town got flooded,” Escareno said.

Escareno pointed out the parallels of Max picking up people in a boat to that of real life people who helped others in the same way during the flood.

“During Harvey, there were just these regular people who had boats and were able to help other people…” she said.

“In my neighborhood, people had to be rescued. Personally, our property flooded but our house didn’t and I didn’t have to be rescued.”

For the unique look of the film, Escareno said Tim Burton films “definitely” influenced her choice.

“A Purpose” was created and directed by Escareno with assistance by Kameron Guillory and Caden Williams.

 

Living the experience

When it came to conveying some of the more direct moments of Tropical Storm Harvey, juniors Hailey Neighbors, Lucy Villanueva, Arizbeth Lopez and Lauryn Dean utilized first-hand accounts from a few people who lived the experience.

“This is Harvey” is a documentary that captures the night-of and following-day accounts of two Sabine Pass teachers and one Sabine Pass student. The student was Neighbors.

“It was just for people to know that I was part of a student body that had a voice, for other students who went through the same thing I went through, who knew the heartbreak and having to evacuate,” Neighbors said.

In the film, Neighbors said she never expected Harvey to be the kind of storm that it would ultimately be.

“It was just a simple day with no school,” Neighbors said. “I remember watching Netflix and my mom coming into my room telling me, ‘You need to pack a bag because we might have to leave.’

“So I packed my bag. I really didn’t think much of it until I walked into the living room and I looked out the back door. Water just kept coming in.”

Neighbors said, “It started to get to our ankles and it was scary because you think you see things in the movies. It’s not going to happen here (but) this is reality.’”

Behind the camera, Villanueva shared her own experience.

Villanueva lives in Port Acres, where she recalled there had never been flooding from a hurricane during her lifetime.

“The night Harvey came in, I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor,” Villanueva said. “My parents woke me up in the middle of the night and said to get on the bed because it was starting to flood.”

Villanueva said the next morning she woke up and the water had reached the baseboard of the bed.

“Many people think 2 to 6 inches of water isn’t that bad…” Villanueva said. “But in reality, those 2 to 6 inches get inside the walls, goes inside the insulation and ruins the insulation and sheetrock inside the house.”

Villanueva said her and her family had to go to a friend’s house for safety.

“Everything my parents worked hard for, half of it was all gone,” she said. “All the hard work that they had paid off — that they spent working for — half of it was gone.”

She said it was a moment of change for her.

“To us, it made us realize and appreciate more of what our parents were doing for us,” Villanueva said.

“It changed my whole outlook on life,” Neighbors said. “I’m starting to learn how to not take things for granted.”

 

On a statewide platform

“We felt that Port Arthur is big; but, at the same time, it’s small. In national news, Rockport or Houston got the coverage, not our part of Southeast Texas,” Villanueva said. “We wanted to put out stories of people in Port Arthur who lived here.”

Villanueva described their first time in UIL competition as an accomplishment because they were going against other schools that had been competing regularly for years before them.

“It felt like our work paid off,” she said.

“When we were going through all the different rounds, I was just thinking the film was so hard to make and now it’s going through…” Escareno said. “The thing we worked on for so many months is really making it.”

Escareno described the selection and final placement of her film as a “kind of relief” because she and the others had worked so hard on it.

“It did something. I think that with this film it (says) that anybody can find their purpose and that it might show up at the most random moment,” she said.

Rector attributed the students’ success to their films’ respective purposes.

“Both groups’ points were in telling the story,” he said. “They did well in editing; but both films placed special emphasis on telling the story. That’s how they really became as successful as they were.”

 

The strength of film

The Sabine Pass students chose film as the medium to convey their stories because it is a unique art form that combines several elements.

“I feel with films, people will pay attention to them,” Escareno said. “People don’t read the news that often or pay attention to a lot of things in print.

“But for this topic, people will get their eyes caught on the film.”

“I think it was because we liked the way we could put it together,” Lopez said. “Not our words, but the words of the people who went through it — how they felt, how they went through the whole thing.”

Escareno commented on the different elements of a film — the sound, the visuals, the editing — and how they all come together in the end to be a finished project.

“When making a film, you put a lot into it…” she said. “All the arts require a working process; but with film, it felt like something we had to work really hard for and spend a lot of time on.”

“Both films are student-made,” Rector said. “I didn’t have anything to do with the filming or the editing; I was just in an advisory capacity. It was fun to watch them learn.”

 

The films could be found at the following web addresses:

“This is Harvey”: https://youtu.be/Ab3N5RjCzz0

“A Purpose”: https://youtu.be/F–_pLYlzIY