BY ABBY YOUNG

AND JAYLYNN WARD

MEDIA WRITING REPORTERS

The creators of Sola Nocte may not be headed for careers as filmmakers, but they hope the audience appreciates the individualism that went into their effort.

Tres Cox, a marketing major from Lewisville, and Cristian Villanueva, a computer science major from Abilene, are two people on the small film team for Sola Nocte. Although not film majors, the two wanted to use their outside skills and hobbies to create and tell a story of hope and individualism.

“It’s not the kind of story that has dialogue,” said Cox, the film’s camera operator, editor, writer and director.

Sola Nocte features two dancers in different places in life who are experiencing the same obstacles, which is conveyed in their mirrored choreography. Background dancers add chaos to both characters’ lives, and Cox said the film looks at how each character handles the stress of difficult decisions and outside opinions. The story focuses on the pressures of feeling misunderstood and helping one another through the process.

Cox said he was initially inspired by the song Sound of Silence, covered by Audrey Assad. He first heard the song in December and said he immediately had a recurring picture of a possible screenplay.

With this in mind, he decided to reach out to other artists to create this story through FilmFest. His vision was for choreography to be the main source to represent the message of his story.

The team is not necessarily looking for an award.

Team members are unsure if a portion of the dancers are eligible to earn an award through FilmFest because they are not ACU students but are from an outside dance studio.

“We aren’t even looking for an award,” Cox said, “We just wanted to make [the film] and hope that people find something to connect with.”

The main goal was purely to spread the message that Cox created.

Villanueva said that was enough.

“It was just really cool to watch the story come to life,” he said.

Although passion for the story came easily to the team, not being experienced in filmmaking brought some obstacles.

Cox and Villanueva have done work for live shows, both in photography and videography. This was their first time using these skills in a planned production, and they found it hard to create a cohesive story in this setting. The pair said it was difficult to create a product from an already planned vision in addition to the shooting and editing.

Production was not easy because of the FilmFest deadlines for editing and approvals. The team found it difficult to adapt to outside timelines after working for personal jobs.

“I should have started earlier,” Cox said.

Still, the pair said they learned to meet these deadlines and accept outside support.

Cox said that his hope for the story is that the audience knows, “You’re not alone; there is someone out there who understands you.”

Crew/cast: Tres Cox, writer, director, camera operator, editor; Kirsten Aguilar, choreography, actress; Rebecka Soliz, choreography, actress; Eden Barnhouse, set photography; Cristian Villanueva, drone operator; Rayan Castilo, actress; Kelsey Johnson, actress; Viviana Hita-Murilo, actress; Olivia Stewart, actress. Dancers provided in association with Dance Discovery Studios and not affiliated with ACU.