Photo Credit: Wynston Phan
SAN JOSE, CALIF. — To Silver Creek High School senior Wynston Phan, overcoming a challenge means an opportunity to help other students, as shown from planning his own film festival and taking a leading role in the Butterfly Project.
Phan’s love for creating his own films brought him to study film and production in the Silicon Valley Career Technical Education (SVCTE) program. While it gave him career experience, it also gave him an opportunity to help the community through a film festival.
Film festivals give students the opportunity to submit their own short films to show on a theater screen to other participants. The whole event takes about two hours, as dozens of films are shown. These festivals showcase students’ talent to family and peers.
With a creative attitude, Phan, the lead Director of Photography for his group, submitted a film titled “Two Girls One Stolen Gun” to the student-run Luminescence film festival in Palo Alto. Simply seeing the production on the big screen for a room full of strangers to marvel at was surreal. Out of the 17 nominees, their film won.
“It was like a drug, seeing our film on the big screen,” Phan said.
Despite winning, certain parts of the festival were off, such as a poor projector and strange aspect ratio. SVCTE did hold film festivals separate to Luminescence without these problems, but only SVCTE students could participate, which was even worse. An easily-accessible film festival with professional technology didn’t exist yet.
Video Credit: Wynston Phan
Actresses: Allison Crick, Evalyn Luna
Phan came up with the idea to make a separate film festival, one that any film-loving Bay Area teenager can partake in, whether they are in SVCTE or not. He wants anybody to be able to experience the feeling of showing your film to the world and to join a community of filmmakers and film enthusiasts who share feedback and ideas to all.
Phan’s film festival is currently taking submissions on its website.
Phan’s desire to help others achieve greatness doesn’t end there. He’s the outreach director of the Butterfly Project, a new student-made organization that uses grants and sponsorships to help fund student-led initiatives and clubs across seven local high schools (including Silver Creek) and two community colleges. In total, $10,000 was redistributed in the first round of grants.
His inspiration to join came from his experience in the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), which is an organization of students that prepares them for a future in business through competitions and educational programs. It culminates in the National Leadership Conference where the best students gather to compete or share their experiences.
Phan and his group won second place in states for data analysis, giving them the opportunity to go to nationals. The largest challenge however wasn’t reaching that point, but trying to pay for the trip to nationals. The four day trip cost $30,000 to get all 20 people to Atlanta. According to the FBLA website, each student member must pay a $195 registration fee, along with $275 per night for the hotel. Other costs, like food and transportation, also had to be paid for by students.
Phan searched for grants and sponsors for his group, from which he raised $1,500. He also pitched to start a group GoFundMe, but the organization didn’t allow it. He was able to create a personal GoFundMe just to pay for his own expenses, but the rest of the group had to pay for themselves.
Not wanting any other student having their success limited by funds, his friends Zakaria Kortam and Ruthvik Singireddy founded the Butterfly Project and gave the outreach director position to Phan.
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