North Bend film student Rachel Mallasch debuts new short, Dec. 31 at North Bend Theatre

By Evan Pappas • December 29, 2016 4:30 pm

After a four-month production schedule, the short film “Keegan the Alien” will be debuting on Dec. 31, at the North Bend Theater. The film is the work of more than 20 students from Azusa Pacific University in California, including North Bend’s Rachel Mallasch.

Mallasch, a 2014 Mount Si High School graduate and now a junior at APU in the cinematic production program, worked with her fellow juniors to create and submit the film as one of two junior-made films in the school’s first semester film projects.

“The film we have been working on all semester is part of our third-year production class,” Mallasch said. “This is the first year that we are in a professional setting, where everyone has an individual role. I was one of the producers.”

About 25 juniors in her cohort worked on the project, she explained. They were given a script selected by the production department.

The script the group worked with was written and submitted by a student from the theater department at APU. Mallasch described it as a story about learning to cope with the loss of a family member and how that can affect our lives.

“After finding his deceased father’s half-built transporter, a 15-year-old autistic boy named Keegan believes that his father is in outer space and finishes building the transporter in order to reunite with him, alienating himself from his Earth life in the process,” she said “It’s also about the grieving process and learning to cope.”

Production on the short film began in the summer with script rewrites and scouting for locations. In September, the actors were cast and the film was shot through the end of October. Mallasch was one of two producers on the project, responsible for the logistics behind the filming. Along with her co-producer, she scouted and secured locations for the filming around Glendora, Los Angeles, and Thousand Oaks, among a variety of other tasks.

“The two of us are responsible for finding and obtaining all the locations,” she said. “We got insurance for sets, insurance for equipment and insurance for locations. We did budgeting and scheduling, food for our cast and crew, calling people and asking for food donations, submitting to film festivals and getting footage to our actors. On set we are mediators for everyone.”

Overall, Mallasch said the project was worked on by more than 40 people, including cast, crew and professors.

While the film was completed and submitted to their professor in early December, the film’s first showing at APU is in the spring, but before then, “Keegan the Alien” will be making its debut in North Bend.

Mallasch, who has returned to her home in North Bend for the holidays, contacted the North Bend Theater to ask if they would have a time to show her film.

“I found out about this through a neighbor,” she said. “When he was a senior in college he had his senior film shown at the North Bend Theater, so I called them and asked if they would be willing to show ours and they agreed.”

“Keegan the Alien” is scheduled to play at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 31, and will be followed by a question and answer segment with Mallasch and two other students who worked on the film.

Mallasch was a frequent award winner in student photography competitions while at Mount Si High School and in 2014 she was one of 10 national finalists in the Toyota Teen Driver Video Challenge.