Wichita teen takes home prize at Tallgrass Film Festival’s 24-hour race

All great filmmakers know that they need a lot of food around to keep people happy on set. That’s why Levi Feil gives a lot of the credit for his recent film prize to his parents for supplying cookies.

Feil, a 14-year-old Wichitan, won one of the top 10 spots at Tallgrass Film Festival’s recent Down to the Wire: A 24-Hour Film Race for his film “Agent of Change,” a movie that starred actors between 8 and 14 years old.

“When I had first been told about this film race and its rigorous requirements, I was nervous because I didn't think that I was prepared to take on groups of college students and semi-professionals,” Field said in an interview posted on the Tallgrass website. “But once we got started I was surprised at what I could do.”

That’s not to say it was easy.

He relied on his friend Cooper Galyon, 13, who attends Sterling High School. Galyon wrote the film’s musical score and was the only other crew member who had experience making movies, Feil said in the Tallgrass interview.

The rest were newbies who he had to corral and cajole just to get them on set. “Once we had them gathered up, they were hungry, then they forgot their lines.”

He spent around four hours writing and six hours filming, which gave him what should’ve been plenty of time to edit: 14 hours. But with one hour remaining, just when he was hoping to add in his special effects, he saw a brand name that he had to expunge from a key shot. “Having never done that, it took some time to learn and apply,” Feil said in the interview. “So no time was left for the special effects I wanted.”

But when the winning films were announced, he won Best Screenplay, and the Emerging Student Filmmaker award, in addition to one of the final 10 spots.

Feil said in the interview that he’s been making movies since he was 10 with a Vivitar camera his dad bough him and he buys “better equipment with money I earn from chores, working a fireworks stand and birthdays.”

Feil has been working with some of the actors, including his brother Malachi, 14, since they starred in his very first “Amtrak” film he made with Malachi’s train set. But he has “only been working with Paul (Cook) and Andrew (Cook) for about 7 months. However, like Cooper, they are naturals.”

He spends nine to 12 hours making a three to four minute video and now has his own YouTube channel. But he attributes some of his success to his parents support and cookies.

He also has a long-list of assistant producers to thank.

“I really want to thank all the parents of the actors for allowing me to borrow their kids and use them in my film,” Feil told Tallgrass. “I especially would like to thank my mom for preparing the food and keeping people entertained while I was shooting a scene, and dad for helping me with script revisions and encouragement.”

Despite repeated requests, the film festival had still not released Feil’s movie to the wider public at the time of publication.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 11:21 AM with the headline "Wichita teen takes home prize at Tallgrass Film Festival’s 24-hour race."