Weberfest is a yearly tradition that gives students the opportunity to celebrate their artwork and view the digital media contributions of other WSD students on the big screen.
Weberfest was derived from the original Utah High School film festival held in Salt Lake and Utah County areas. This event was originally hosted during the school day, allowing for schools to rent buses to transport kids to and from the event with ease. However, a problem arose when the Utah High School film festival started being held at 5 PM instead.
Considering this time fluctuation, transportation would be nearly impossible to obtain due to the added challenge of the students’ returning to Fremont at 11-12PM, traveling to Salt Lake City wouldn’t be a viable option anymore.
Shawn Potokar, digital media teacher at Weber Innovations Center, and Fred Smith,digital media teacher at Fremont, created Weberfest around 10 years ago to give students another opportunity to get their creative projects seen and recognized.
Mr. Smith said, “The roots of [Weberfest] was to create this avenue for our kids to compete without having to travel so far, and it’s kind of a smaller venue and allows students to compete against friends and neighbors.”
Weberfest this year was hosted on April 24 at Walker Cinemas in North Ogden. The event consisted of three subjects: Graphic art, Photography and Video, and each consisted of several offshoot categories.
Among the winners, Fremont students won three categories in the video section; Music Video (Jordyn Heath) Artistic (Shelby McFarland) and Visual Effects (Owen Taylor).
Jordyn Heath, a junior, originally submitted her music video as an assignment for her Video Productions class.
Jordyn Heath reflects on her decision to get outside of her bubble and try filming with her video production and broadcasting experience. Heath remarks, “During that time it was the middle of my junior year. Last year I wasn’t in the yearbook at all or anything, so this year I wanted to be a part of something. Junior year I feel like I’ve been more social and I’ve been branching out!”
Weberfest is not only a celebration of film and art but a celebration of youth. Next year is another year of opportunity for students to showcase their digital creations. For any students interested, it’s an open invite. Smith remarks “It’s open to anybody, so you don’t have to be part of our classes to be in it or enter it.”
