Two University of Tampa film students presented their film, “Franky and Ty,” in the Reeves Theater on Wednesday, Dec. 2 at 10 p.m. to an almost full theater.
According to Austin Daniels, director and star of the film, most film students want to see something crazy that appears hard to do. Instead, he said he wanted to do something simple but fun and have it be well done.
Daniels played the character Franky in the film and another student, Andrew Lopes, played Ty.
Lopes also wrote the film.
Both have been working on the film for almost the whole semester. “It took from the beginning of the semester to 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, [Dec. 1, to make the film]” Daniels said.
The film is about two best friends: the typical mean guy, Ty, and the typical sweet guy, Franky. The plot unfolds when Franky’s date does not go well because he’s “too nice,” and Ty decides to teach him how to be a mean guy.
According to Daniels, everyone who worked on the production was students. They made the film for a Senior Seminar class with Tom Garret.
At the premiere they showed a promotion for the film and a trailer for another movie in which Daniels is a supporting actor before showing the film.
Afterwards there were questions and answers and a special bloopers reel. The event was a little over an hour long.
“For the most [part it] ran smoothly,” Daniels said. According to him, the only problems they ran into were with extras for the club scene and with the owners not realizing how long it would to take to film.
The film was very funny. Daniels and Lopes had great chemistry on the screen together. It was funny seeing Franky going through his mean guy training and watching Ty fall asleep through it.
In the club scene, Franky gets a drink thrown on him, slapped in the face and beat up by a bouncer trying to pick up girls.
Each scene was well shot without leaving the camera on one person for too long to keep it interesting. There was no unneeded conversation; all of it related to the story line.
These are a couple of students who are clearly going to go somewhere in the movie business, according to the talent they displayed in the film.