08/24/2018
To the students, friends, and family of the Kingsport Theatre Guild/Big Small Town Studios Class of 2018 Film Camp:
Please allow me to take a moment to express my sincerest apologies for the postponement of the red carpet premiere for this year’s student films. We were all very much looking forward to the event; however, due to worsening technical issues with the equipment we had been using to edit the films at camp, we were not able to render the finished films for exhibition this evening.
We worked until the last possible second to fix the issues, with help from a variety of community organizations who pitched in and donated their time and talents—but it was, sadly, to no avail. We were finally forced to make the heartbreaking decision to cancel the event.
We believe in putting out the best-quality pieces we possibly can—we owe that to our students—and we would not have been able to bring you that quality this evening. Ultimately, our students will be better served by having an audience see their films fully finished, with proper post-production and sound, as the students envisioned them.
I do want to make one thing clear here: Big Small Town Studios assumes full responsibility for these technical issues. While the issues themselves were beyond our financial and creative resources to address leading up to tonight’s premiere, it is the studio alone that is responsible for the delay.
Kingsport Theatre Guild has been an incredible partner over the last four years in providing this amazing learning opportunity for students interested in filmmaking, and it has been our pleasure to join with them in the effort to educate new classes of young people each summer. As disappointing and difficult as it is to see, it’s truly this learning experience, and the desire we instill in our students to keep creating scripts and films of their own, that makes our camp so special in the end—tenfold more than the films themselves.
KTG and its executive director Tina Radtke are blameless in this scenario, and I cannot reiterate that enough, nor can I heap enough praises upon them. Tina has been nothing but a consummate professional and flawless planner/organizer; she was ever-present and always went beyond the call of duty during the camp, and she had everything ready to go for tonight’s event. We are lucky to have such an amazing resource in her, because she is someone whose heart and passion for our students is unmatched.
Big Small Town Studios is sincerely apologetic to all those who feel let down by tonight’s postponement; most of all, we’re sorry to the students who worked hard over the course of seven days to develop, write, and shoot their films. We have contacted the students to let them know about the situation and what we plan to do to rectify it with them. We will be providing them links to watch their films online as soon as we are able to upload them, and we will make certain they are ready for whatever date is set for the rescheduled premiere.
We hope that you will stay tuned, and that you will come out and support the work of these talented artists and budding filmmakers.
This is our mistake. MY mistake. I hate it, and I’m embarrassed by it. But I’m owning it 100%, and I am more sorry than I know how to express in words. I only hope what I’ve said here will at least come close.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support of the arts in Kingsport and in the Tri-Cities area.
Yours very sincerely,
Dustin Street
BST Owner/Film Camp Instructor
