Alex Holmes ’24, who majored in Media Arts & Culture (MAC) at Occidental, recently had his senior thesis short film selected to be screened Oct. 4 for The Highland Park Independent Film Festival. Holmes said his short film “Boiling Point” references the anxieties that come with college life, focusing on those specific to the class of students that entered college during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Holmes, “Boiling Point” follows Michael, an anxious teen portrayed by actor Rodrigo Jimenez, awaiting the arrival of his dinner date. Michael plans to prepare an easy dish of pasta with sauce for dinner, though it proves to be much more stressful than he expected.
At the beginning of the film, Michael’s anxiety is highlighted by how he is reluctant to check out his groceries with the cashier and prefers the self-checkout, where interaction with another person is not necessary. Holmes said this is a reference to points of the COVID-19 pandemic in which it was encouraged to distance oneself from others as much as possible.
“I feel like COVID pretty majorly impacted my college experience,” Holmes said. “You didn’t have any socialization at all during COVID.”
Holmes said he had entered college during this antisocial period and wanted to portray his anxiety from this point in his life through the role of Michael.
Michael’s buildup of stress relates to the story’s title, “Boiling Point,” which reflects the anticipation of waiting for a pot of water to boil, according to Holmes.
Holmes said he used his every day experiences to be able to create a piece that effectively conveyed college-level stress from his own perspective, as well as the perspectives of those around him.
“You have to get in your head about the worst possible scenarios and what people are thinking about you and all that kind of stuff, and then in the end, it kind of turns out okay, but usually people are super nice and welcoming and so I just wanted to reflect that in the movie,” Holmes said.
Holmes said he was able to complete this project with a number of Occidental students and a few Screen Actors Guild eligible actors. In the process, he partnered with fellow Occidental alum Timothy Shortell ’24, who scored the entire piece, according to Holmes.
Because a majority of the film takes place in a kitchen, Shortell said he decided to focus on centering his music around noises that could be found in the kitchen.
According to Shortell, he worked on finding different sounds, such as pots being hit, that could create interesting rhythms and complement the plot while building up the tension and anxiety that is displayed throughout the piece.
“I use different tapping noises, and I tried to kind of play into that nervous energy that sits in the background for most of the film but keeps the tension high,” Shortell said.
Holmes said Shortell’s music works well with the film, successfully capturing both anxiety and comedy in the score.
Holmes and Shortell’s contributions to the film were accompanied by Jimenez’s portrayal of anxiety, where Jimenez said he was able to apply his experiences of anxiety to the character.
“In my perspective, what the audience should take away from this story would be not to overthink, not to essentially let anxiety win — because when you do, it creates a whole bunch of problems,” Jimenez said.
Holmes said that the film took two semesters to complete. While some aspects did not turn out as he had expected, such as the sound quality and lighting continuity, Holmes said he is proud of the outcome of the piece and grateful to the entire cast and crew that worked on it.
After submitting the film to three different film festivals, Holmes got an acceptance from the Highland Park Independent Film Festival, which he said was very validating.
“I’m just very excited for it to screen in front of people,” Holmes said, “I liked the experience of screening it at Oxy when we did our comps presentations.”
Holmes said this piece was a learning experience of building confidence as a director, learning to work with actors and figuring out how to solve problems. Holmes said that timing was one of his biggest struggles, as he ended up having to cut scenes to fit within his time constraints, but these challenges all eventually allowed him to grow and learn as a filmmaker.
“I’m proud of it, and I put a lot of work in, and everyone who worked on it did a great job,” Holmes said. “I’m happy with where it’s at.”
Contact Amalia Rimmon at rimmon@oxy.edu
